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The Ship Who Searched

by Anne McCaffrey & Mercedes Lackey

The City Who Fought

by Anne McCaffrey & S. M. Stirling

The Ship Who Won

by Anne McCaffrey & Jody Lynn Nye

The Ship Errant

by Jody Lynn Nye

The ship avenged

S. M. STIRLING

the ship avenged

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises P.O. Box 1403 Riverdale, NY 10471

ISBN: 0-671-87861-1

Cover art by Stephen Hickman

First paperback printing, February 1998

Distributed by Simon & Schuster 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 96-36977

Typeset by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH Printed m the United States of America

PROLOGUE

Belazir t'Marid, War Lord of the Kolnar, Clan Father after Chalku, gazed at the row of crystal vials in their rack, admiring the amber liquid within them. With a lover's tenderness he stroked one jet-black finger across them, reveling in their cool, smooth surfaces.

"Perfect," he murmured, holding the rack up to the light.

His face was no longer an ancient Greeks vision of masculine beauty colored the depthless onyx of a starless night. The quick aging of Kolnar had seamed and scored it, until the starved hunger of the soul within showed through the flesh. The brass-yellow eyes looked down on the vials with a benevolent affection he showed no human being.

Then he smiled, teeth even and white and hard, and laughed. His fist squeezed shut, as if it held a throat.

His son fought not to shiver at the sound of that laugh. There was hatred in it, and an overtone of madness. It made the narrow confines of the bio-storage chamber seem constricting—an odd sensation to one born and raised in the strait confines of spaceships and vacuum habitats. Life-support kept the air pure and varied only enough to simulate Kolnar's usual range of temperatures, from freezing to just below the boiling point of water. Yet now it felt clammy and oppressive . . .

"Not perfect," Karak's voice rasped across his father's reverie. “This disease does not kill. I call that far from perfect. Clan Father," he added, when Belazir turned to glare at his oldest living son.

The elder Kolnar allowed himself an exasperated hiss; it was entirely natural for a boy to plot his father's death, but also for his father to strike first if it became too obvious. And the boys resentment and dislike were, if anything, obvious.

At times, he wondered about Karak's paternity, for the boy had no subtlety. But the face that looked defiantly back at him might have been his own, some years ago. Once, he too had that youthful swagger, the crackling vitality that sparkled though the lean, panther-muscled body and the vanity that showed in silver ornaments woven into waist-length silver-white hair.

"Child," he said with deceptive gentleness. Karak stiffened. Belazir enjoyed the reaction, and the reaction to reaction. Let the heir realize the old eagle still had claws.

"It pleases me to enlighten you as to why this is a punishment that most admirably fits the crime. Central Worlds, and the damnable Bethelite scum, created The Great Plague to eradicate the Divine Seed of Kolnar." He paused and raised one eyebrow, as if to inquire, Is this not so? Karak nodded once, resentfully. "And we shall repay that evil by inflicting upon them a disease that will not simply destroy, but will terrify and humiliate them."

Reluctantly he placed the rack of vials back on its shelf and closed the cooler door. Then he turned to his son:

"Is it enough for you that they should merely die?" he asked in mild astonishment. Karak frowned, but did not answer. "True, it does not kill. What it does is far worse, and the Bethelites shall appreciate that, where you cannot." Belazir laughed, a low chuckle full of gloating pleasure. "It will be a living nightmare to those few not afflicted.

"As you lack imagination, Karak, let me tell you what will happen." Belazir made a sweeping motion with his arm, as though activating a holo-display. "Once the scumvermin realize the magnitude of the threat they face, first, they will call upon their god, as they did when we took Bethel in our fist. And when he does not answer them, some will say that they deserve their fate; a view that we, of course, share. But not all of them will lie down and wait to rot. No."

Belazir ground his teeth, remembering one Bethelite in particular who had refused to lie down.

"So. They will next call upon their allies, the mighty Central Worlds, for aid." He spread his hands. "But there is no cure! Oh, a few paltry doses of one," he jerked his head dismissively, "but they are in our possession. Their champions will have no choice but to quarantine their miserable little planet. The all-powerful Fleet of would-be saviors from Central Worlds will watch helplessly from orbit while the pleas for help from below slowly fade away, as thousands starve and the so-moral Bethelites turn to preying upon each other to survive. They will watch until Bethel's civilization falls and the last of them dies—and no human foot will ever walk upon that accursed planet again!"

Belazir wiped the spittle from his lips and studied his son's impassive face with growing impatience.

"Think, my son! Our revenge shall have symmetry." Belazir made a fluid gesture with his hand, "subtlety."

"Your love of subtlety" Karak said bitterly, "has already cost the clan dear."

True. After their disastrous rout from the Space Station Simeon-900-C, what the Central Worlds Navy hadn't destroyed, the Great Plague did. From the Navy they could run or hide, but they brought The Plague with them to every gathering of Kolnar-in-space, to all of the exiles from homeworld.

Also, as was their custom, for the strengthening of their seed, they had exposed the children to it. Virtually an entire generation, with their caretakers, died. The adult population had been reduced by three quarters. Only now was their natural fecundity increasing their numbers once more.

The Plague had been created by minions of the beauteous Channa Hap, station master of the SSS-900-C and by the "brain," Simeon, the station's true ruler, whom she served.

And by the Bethelites. The damnable should-have-been-crushed Bethelites who had lured them to the Central Worlds station and their doom.

Belazir's hubris had allowed him to believe he held their hearts in his fist. He was so sure he'd terrorized them into believing their safety was guaranteed—if they followed every Kolnari order to the letter.

He should have broken Channa Hap's spirit, broken all of their spirits, he knew. But he'd so enjoyed the cat and mouse game they were playing.

Belazir sighed. This was hindsight. He couldn't have known about The Plague. Even his Sire, Chalku, would not have anticipated a sickness that could afflict the mighty Kolnar. Had not the Divine Seed shrugged off diseases that annihilated whole populations of scum-vermin? All that does not kill us, makes us stronger, Belazir told himself. But this had come close to killing them all, very close. Almost as close as homeworld had come to killing all the exiled Terrans who were the first ancestors of the Divine Seed.

Yet some survived to breed, he reminded himself. Survived, to become the superior race and made a home of a planet their persecutors had thought would kill them all. The Clan had escaped Kolnar too; escaped into space for endless revenge and conquest.

He glanced at his scowling son. Belazir understood the boy's bitterness. Do 1 not feel it myself, ten-fold?

"My mistake was not in being subtle," he said to Karak. "It was in not being subtle enough."

CHAPTER ONE

The Benisur Amos ben Sierra Nueva sat before the viewscreen in his cabin, watching the beloved shape of Bethel grow smaller, until it was merely a bright spark, another star in the star-shot blackness of space. An exterior view was a luxury he allowed himself, even as he insisted on this simple cabin in a hired merchantman. Bethel had always been a poor world, poor and remote; their ancestors had chosen it to preserve their faith in isolation. It was even poorer since the Kolnari raid, if less solitary; the Central Worlds had sent much aid, and the people had toiled without cease, but so much had been destroyed.

Alarms rang. He braced himself, as he did before every transition; it was futile, but not something you could help. Nausea flashed through him as the engines wrenched the ship out of contact with the sidereal universe. He swallowed bile. Some men could take the transition without feeling so, but he was not one of them. But I can bear it. Life taught you that, how to bear things.

Still Amos watched. The screen was a simulation now, a view of how the stars would appear if the outside universe were there. He watched until he could no longer distinguish Bethel's star, Saffron, from the others. Then he switched off the viewscreen and rose wearily. It was always a wrench to leave his home, his people.

Think of what is to come. A week or so to Station SSS-900-C. He removed his robe and lay down on the narrow bed, yawning. The drugs that helped one make an easier transition always left him sleepy. Channa, he thought, and her image rose to delight his mind's eye. Her long, high-cheekboned face framed by curling black hair, teeth white in a smile of welcome.

He'd never imagined, at the beginning, that this makeshift arrangement would last ten years. They'd agreed then to steal twelve weeks from their lives each year so that they could be together. Half of that time he visited Channa, the other half she was with him on Bethel; allowing for travel time, that gave them four weeks together in either place.

He closed his eyes in pain. Four weeks. Just time enough to make each parting agony.

I was so sure she would stay, once she saw my home. Bethel rose before him. The stinging salty wind from the desert marshes, dawn rising thunderous over the sands. The warm sweet smell of cut grass in the river meadows . . . And she always wanted to live planetside.

Amos's mouth quirked. They had too much in common—both were prisoners to their sense of duty. Being reliable made one susceptible to the demands of others. He could not leave Bethel, not while they struggled to rebuild from the devastation the Kolnari had left. And Channa's commitment to her Station was equally strong; as was her friendship with Simeon, the Brain whose body the Station was. So much of her identity was tied up in being a Brawn, a calling to which many aspired but for which few were qualified. And from among those few, she had worked her way up to an unusually high and responsible position. She was respected in Central Worlds. She wielded power and influence.

But among his people, her profession was not understood, her strength and capability, her ambition had been disparaged. She was considered mannish, and his love for her was considered unnatural by many. Not a few of his worried followers had told him so.

He sighed and turned over, thumping at the pillow.

Ten years. He'd thought that if she did not come with him, that perhaps their attraction would gradually grow less. But that had not been the case. The attraction between them was as powerful, the parting as painful, the reunions as rapturous as ever.

Just as her dedication to the Space Station Simeon remained as strong as ever.

Simeon. There was the spur that galled his spirit; that one whom he esteemed as a brother should be his rival for the woman he loved.

Unfair, unreasonable, he knew. Simeons twisted, non-viable body had been encased in a titanium womb at birth. A life-sustaining shell fitted with neural implants that would allow him to be connected to various housings—to the space station that became his body and his home. Channa was his Brawn, the mobile half of the team of which Simeon was the "brain."

Amos twisted around in the bed again.

His jealousy was baseless, but still, it tormented him. Simeon's love for Channa and hers for Simeon was, perforce, chaste. Simeon could never hold her, as Amos could, nor run hand in hand with her along a beach, nor . . . other things. And yet, Simeon had the greater share of her time, her company, the sight and sound of her that Amos himself yearned for.

In five years her contract will be finished. Then she would have to choose to renew it—or not. Amos smiled as sleep drifted in, as gentle as weightlessness. She is too full of life to choose more years among metal and machines.

"Is it true, my Lord, that when you return to Bethel you will at last choose a bride?"

Amos—Prophet of the Second Revelation, Hero of the war against the Kolnar and Leader of Bethel's Council of Elders—suppressed a violent start.

Not again! The Council must have been at her. He put his book aside reluctantly—Simeon had tracked down an original Delany—and turned his recliner to face her.

Soamosa bint Sierra Nueva, for her part, sat silently, dressed in a very proper, long-sleeved gray dress which covered her from throat to ankles. Her hair, amazingly blond for a Bethelite, was completely hidden now in a matching gray bag that framed her small face unbecomingly. Amos ran a list of the usual suspects through his mind. One reason I have lived so long is that I do not have an heir. There were many traditionalists on Bethel who loved the thought of a regency—with themselves pulling the strings from behind a minor's chair.

Amos considered his cousin, trying to see her as a stranger might. She is no longer the tomboy I once knew, he admitted reluctantly. She is a woman, a terribly proper one. He suppressed a sigh. I should have brought her with me earlier.

Bethel had become considerably less isolated since the Kolnari attack. Before that he'd been viewed as a heretic for wanting to open their planet to the universe—and he hadn't been heir, either. The Kolnari fusion bomb that destroyed the city of Keriss and the then-Council and Prophet had driven home his point about the dangers of isolationism quite thoroughly.

Soamosa licked her lips nervously.

"I do not wish to overstep, my Lor . . . cousin," she looked up at him with soft blue eyes and smiled shyly.

"But it is true that the people wonder when you will take a wife. For ten years, they say, you have left us to go to this woman who is married to an abomination and still she has given you no heir. The people say it is a judgment and they are troubled, cousin."

Soamosa lowered her eyes and her head when she'd finished speaking. Her slender back was straight, her slim feet pressed together in their thick, homely shoes, her hands were folded modestly in her lap. She was the perfect picture of traditional Bethelite womanhood.

Perhaps a perfect candidate for the Prophet's wife. Amos wondered who had been in charge of her education these past few years, regretting his lack of involvement. There was too much to do, he protested to his creeping guilt, too many documents and summaries and reports . . .

Amos breathed a quiet, frustrated sigh. Ah, Channa, he thought, how you've changed me. Once, not so very long ago, I would have approved of such overwhelming self-negation. I would have been pleased at the way she distanced herself from her own opinions so as not to seem overbold. What would you advise me to tell her, my love?

He realized now, far too late, that choosing to bring Soamosa had been something of an error. Insensitive at best. No doubt his young cousin's mother had visions of an elaborate wedding ceremony with thousands of guests upon their return; her daughter would be the radiant bride, himself, the blushing groom.

He sat up straighter and spoke to her firmly.

"Soamosa, look at me."

Her lips trembled and her eyes were huge and shining when she looked up.

"I have told you that Simeon is neither an abomination, nor Channa's husband. He is my dear friend,

and Channa, who is completely unbound, is the woman that I love. Do you understand this?"

A frown struggled to manifest itself and then her face smoothed.

Ah, Amos thought, such control For one so apparently timid she's actually quite strong.

"No," she said firmly, "I do not."

"I do not owe you an explanation, little one."

She bit her lip and lowered her eyes, then looked up at him again, abashed, but hopeful.

Amos sighed.

"We will begin with Simeon," he said patiently. "What is your objection to him?"

"He isn't human, cousin. He is a thing that mocks the perfection of man as God created him."

"And is our uncle, Grigory, an abomination because his heart is made of plastic mesh?"

She frowned. "No, of course not."

"Simeon simply requires more mechanical aid than does our uncle. He is still a man, just as Grigory is a man. And he is good man, one of the truest friends that I have ever had. If you will but open your heart to him, he will be your friend too, Soamosa."

Predictably, she looked both doubtful and queasy.

"As to my relationship with Channa Hap . . ."

Her interest sharpened to a sword's point.

"Frankly, it is none of your business." He watched her blush a deep scarlet. "This I will say, Channa and I do not need a marriage ceremony to sanctify what is already a very real and pure love. Nor is it necessary for me to produce an heir."

Soamosa actually gasped and clutched at her heart in horror.

"Let the family divide my estates and wealth among themselves when I am dead. Our world and people will not falter because I am gone. Let them find another to head the state."

"But your holiness will also be gone. We would be so comforted if you left sons behind to guide us," she said passionately.

Amos smiled at her. "Sweet cousin, when God touches a man's heart and urges him to speak as a prophet to the people, that man is not chosen because of who his father was. Only think what it would be like if the people turned to you, expecting you to fill my shoes."

"But they wouldn't!" she said in horror. "I'm only a woman."

Amos tried to imagine Channa's reaction to that remark. He gave a complex inward shudder. Channa Hap in full fury was enough to make a strong man blanch and cringe; like a thunderstorm on the sands, or a driven ocean crashing on high cliffs.

"Ah, but they might think that my taking you on this trip had some deeper meaning." She blushed at that and quickly lowered her eyes. "And if I were to offer you such special attentions for the rest of my life, then they would surely think it significant. After all, there have been prophetesses before."

"But . . . but ... I have no calling," she protested, both horrified and confused. "I know that I have not."

"So, why should I create an heir, who might have no calling either, but of whom the people would expect such? Imagine the life my son or daughter could look forward to. Should I be so unfair? Should I arouse such expectations?"

"No," she said almost sullenly. "But, then why... ?"

"Have I invited you to accompany me? I have invited you because I like you, cousin. Because you are young and I thought that you might enjoy seeing one of the greatest space stations in the universe."

Because I didn't want to see you living your life in a gray sack, with your mind pinched off like a plant being deliberately stunted.

He had changed Bethel, the Kolnari war had changed it more, but there were limits to what could be done in a single generation.

"I thought you might like an adventure."

He was pleased to see a sudden gleam come into her eyes. It reminded him of the girl who'd put a desert gurrek under his pillow. His heart grew content when she grinned back. Perhaps, after all, those horrible clothes and the mealy-mouthed behavior were the result of an ambitious mother's determined schooling. With time and care she might return to her own true self.

A sudden twisting wrench made both of them cry out involuntarily. Soamosa fell to her knees, hands over her mouth to hold back the retching. Amos turned his chair and lunged for his console, knowledge driving out the merely physical misery.

They'd been ripped out of hyperspace.

Dangerous, exceedingly so. Without drugs, or preparation, susceptible and unlucky passengers had been known to slip into a psychotic state.

Amos gripped the arms of his chair and closed his eyes waiting for his body to readjust. Soamosa gave up the unequal struggle and ran for the washroom. Amos swallowed hard as the sounds she made urged his body to sympathetic action.

He activated the com and snapped, "Captain Sung!"

Before he had finished speaking a voice came booming through the ship:

"Attention merchanter ship Sunwise. Stand by to be boarded. Resistance is futile and will be punished. Repeat. Prepare to be boarded."

The skin at the base of Amos's neck clenched as though stabbed with a jagged piece of ice. Kolnari. The accent was different, but the arrogance the same.

The captain hadn't answered his call. Amos made an impatient sound deep in his throat and headed for the bridge, calling out to Soamosa to remain in the cabin. The two guards standing watch outside the door turned smartly and followed him.

I have waited too long. I thought . . . The Kolnari never forgot an injury; but they never attacked a foe they thought too strong, either. They had already found the SSS-900-C a mouthful large enough to choke on. Bethel had a space navy of its own, these days—small, but enough to defend the system until a Central Worlds squadron arrived.

In the merchant ship Sunwise Belazir t'Marid had found a target easy enough to take, which also meant he felt strong enough to survive the inevitable retaliation. The Kolnari leader had the cunning of Shaithen his master. He might be right. . . .

"Ship is in the five kiloton range," the communications tech was saying. "Warship, from the neutrino signature. Corvette class, but not a standard model."

Amos nodded to himself, standing at the rear of the horseshoe-shaped command bridge. Panic, but well-controlled panic, he decided. Captain Sung was snapping out orders; hard, almond-shaped green eyes glittering in a stern middle-aged face. Young Guard-Caladin Samuel stood behind him, one hand on the captain s chair, one resting on the console. Occasionally he leaned close and spoke urgently to the distracted Sung.

On the forward screen, to Amos's vast relief, was a somewhat worse-for-wear ex-courier ship. An ordinary pirate vessel, nothing like the augmented ships the Kolnari favored.

Mere pirates, he thought. / am relieved that it is merely pirates.

"Have they indicated what they want, Captain Sung?"

They want to board," the Captain snarled. "Beyond that, Benisur, I don't know." He rubbed his chin. "But this is no happy accident on their part. There's no trace of recent drive energies; they had to've been waiting for us."

Sung glanced at the controls. "With a grapple already engaged and waiting to trip us out of hyperspace. Timing like that . . ." he let the thought trail off.

Amos's finely chiseled mouth thinned to a grim line. Yes, timing like that meant a traitor, a spy high enough in the Bethelite Security Forces to have access to privileged information. Traitors or Kolnari agents, or both, he decided. Joseph, I should have listened to you.

Complacency. Letting the wish be father to the thought. I thought you paranoid. Mind you, a Chief of Security was supposed to be paranoid. I should have listened. Of late years he'd even given up the simple precaution of booking passage on several different ships, leaving at different times.

"That spawn of Shaithen would know where I was," he'd argued with certainty. "It would take more than a simple trick to escape his grasp."

Joseph would have preferred an escort of destroyers, and a company of Guards. Amos had argued that Central Worlds would, at the least, see that as an insulting lack of trust, and at worst as a provocation— the Bethelites were thought barbaric enough as it was.

Amos glanced at his escort. Four of them; all were young. And untried, he thought, realizing for the first time that they might well die today. Regret and anger washed through him. He'd chosen youngsters because he wanted to expose as many of the young as he could to Central Worlds culture, because that was their future.

Just as these vibrant young men were meant to be Bethel's.

Joseph, my brother, if I ever see you again I shall allow you to scold me for as long as pleases you about my foolishness; and in future I witt bow to your will. He would let Joseph boot his Prophetic arse, for that matter, if he lived past this day.

"Benisur, I'm afraid they may be after you. There's nothing else on the ship that would be worth their trouble."

Nothing, unless the pirates were after a cargo of sun-dried tomatoes, dates, goat cheese, leather handicrafts, and preserved meats. Valuable enough on SSS-900-C, with its rich manufactories and well-paid, highly-trained inhabitants. Not the sort of thing which pirates selected for their raids.

Amos nodded. "My thinking exactly, Captain."

He paused. Pirates would squeeze Bethel for a ransom it could ill afford.

"I am reluctant to place your people or your ship in any greater danger, Captain, but I believe we must consider resisting. After all, if I am the object of this exercise, then they cannot risk firing on the ship and possibly killing me. So that is one danger we need not fear. And as they are in a small ship, how many of them could there be? Ten perhaps? Fifteen?"

The Captain shrugged. "Fifteen tops, more would overtax life support."

"So we outnumber them as well. Let them come aboard, lure them in and when they are in far enough, strike, and take hostage any survivors. What do you say?" Amos glanced at his young Caladin, courteously including him in their council.

"I had not even considered surrendering you to them, Benisur." Samuel's brown eyes held an innocent bravery.

"I'm no soldier, Benisur," Sung said, and pulled on his lower lip. "But I like your plan a whole lot better than just letting these animals grab my ship and take you off it." He nodded decisively: "We'll do it."

There was a slight quaver in Sung's voice as he issued orders to break out the arms. He glanced at Amos to see if it had been noticed. But Amos was studying the monitor showing the lock through which the pirates would enter.

An echoing clang resounded through the ship as the pirates extended a caterpillar lock to connect them to the Sunwise.

Amos looked up from the screen to watch the crewmen depart for their ambush site and murmured a blessing over them, knowing that most of them would neither understand nor thank him for it. But the eyes of the four Bethelites showed gratitude as they ceremoniously touched forehead, lips, and heart.

Then he watched as the Captain keyed the monitors that covered his crews progress under the direction of the Bethelite soldiers.

The camera trained on the main lock showed the hatch recessing. Air hissed as pressures equalized; Bethel's was well below the Earth-derived standard the Central Worlds used.

A long second's pause. Two men in black space armor swung out from the airlock, crouching, plasma rifles up. After a moment one of them signaled and five more swept out. Three split off and moved carefully towards engineering, the other four, hugging the walls and moving with extreme caution, headed for the bridge.

Amos's stomach knotted. Their armor was too much like the Kolnari's—though a stripped down version of it—and their movements were too professional, too disciplined, for mere criminals. If the Kolnari were so reduced as to use outsiders . . . mercenaries . . . But no, surely they would despise and avoid such creatures.

Yet these men behaved like the product of intensive Kolnari training—that was an inhumanly businesslike civilization.

He opened his mouth to advise the Captain to call off the ambush, when a final invader left the airlock and entered the ship.

A foot, clad in massive black battle armor, hit the Sunwise's deck with a crash that seemed to move the ship. Slowly—majestic as an eclipse—the Kolnari entered, turned, and marched towards the bridge.

Amos could not speak. For a moment his throat was paralyzed, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't move. It was unexpected, to be so overwhelmed by horror at seeing one of them again, for he was no coward. But an evil that had almost destroyed his people had returned; the nightmare was marching again—coming to collect him personally.

"Captain!" Amos managed to choke out. "Call off the ambush, call it off or they'll kill you all!"

The Captain stared for a moment as though he hadn't understood, then activated the com and spoke, just as Samuel, the Bethelite Caladin, fired on the invaders.

"Stand down! Stand down! Lay down your weapons and fall back!"

Some of the crew heard him, reacting with confusion at first, looking around to see if anyone else had heard the order, lowering their rifles, backing off. But Amos's guards engaged the enemy—too intent on battle to listen—certain that if the Benisur Amos wished them to hold their fire his voice would have told them so.

One crewman stood up, his hands lifted in surrender and died for it, a steaming hole blasted in his chest by a plasma rifle.

The doubtful broke then and fled, while the others fought and retreated, and died, one by one. Retreat turned to slaughter.

Amos was thrown with bruising force at the feet of Belazir t'Marid and lay face down, unmoving, on a rough carpet made from the scary hide of a great beast. Behind him, he heard the gentle whir of servos as the battle-armored Kolnari lowered the arm that had flung him here. He heard soft grunts as his companions, Captain Sung and Soamosa were tossed to the floor beside him.

Soamosa, her blond hair freed from confinement and her gown much torn, clung to Amos's arm, burying her face against him and trembling.

"Look at me, Benisur," purred a voice silky with satisfaction.

Amos raised himself onto his elbows and slowly lifted his head. Belazir grinned down at him, white teeth gleaming in a predator's snarl from a face as black as a starless night. He has aged, Amos thought, shocked.

The hawklike nose was more prominent and the flesh hung on his face like slightly melted tallow. But the golden eyes were as bright and cruel as they had ever been; though now they held the glint of sheer mad glee, where before there had only been a lazy amusement.

"So good to see you," Belazir continued, almost whispering.

The control room was centered on his chair, like a massive throne set among control consoles and display screens. The Kolnari lord wore only a white silk loincloth and jeweled belt, besides his ornaments; he lolled like a resting tiger between guards in powered armor, his own suit standing empty and waiting. Behind him a holograph showed a nighted landscape where armored plants grew and moved and fought slow vegetable battles with spikes of organic steel. In the distance a nuclear volcano spat fire that red-lighted the undersides of acid clouds. A giant beast with sapphire scales trumpeted its agony at the sky as six-legged wolves leaped and clung and tore at its adamantine sides. Thick purple blood rilled towards the ground, and the very grass writhed to drink of it.

Kolnar, Amos knew with a shudder. Antechamber of hell. Belazir had never seen the planet that bred his land, but it lived in his genes.

"So good to see you like this," Belazir said. He slowly clenched his hand. "You are in my fist," he explained, as though Amos might not know it. "You and your companions." He grinned at them and indicated the Captain. "And who have we here? Captain Sung, I presume?"

A vicious kick from a mercenary prompted a response.

"Yessir," Sung grunted.

A flurry of kicks caused Sung to roll into a ball, covering his head, drawing his feet up to protect his privates. The kicks concentrated on his kidneys until he sobbed.

"Beg," the Kolnari said.

"Please!"

Belazir raised one finger. The mercenary stepped back, grinning. He had a particolored beard and a brass hoop in one ear.

"You must tell the Captain the rules, Benisur. We would not want a repeat of this lesson, not at his age,"

"We must address the Divine Seed of Kolnar as 'Great Lord,'" Amos said, his voice flat and distant, his eyes fixed on the space below the Kolnari's feet, "and when the Lord Captain Belazir addresses us we must respond with 'Master and God.'"

"And what are you, Simeon Amos?" Belazir asked with delicate sarcasm.

"Scumvermin," Amos ground out. Belazir laughed with delight.

"Ah, there are times—like this one, Benisur—when a despised enemy can be more welcome than a beautiful bride." He smiled benignly at Amos, then indicated the cowering girl at his side. "Is this your bride?"

"No! Lord and God," Amos said with such obvious sincerity that Belazir raised an eyebrow.

"Do not tell me you are still saving your seed for the delectable Channahap?"

Amos tried to school his features to immobility. He knew the slight shifts in his expression conveyed his outrage to the Kolnari like a shout.

Belazir smiled a cream-eating smile.

"A most. . . satisfying woman, truly. I can understand your obsession." He indicated Soamosa again. "Then no doubt this little one is a virgin; your people have an inexplicable admiration for such. Do not fear, girl, I can cure you of it."

Soamosa's body jerked as though she'd been struck. She muffled a cry with the sleeve of her robe.

"She is only a child, Master and God," Amos pleaded. "Her family will pay a ransom for her safe return."

Belazir shrugged, "I had eight children by her age, and all of my wives were the same age as I. If I return her to her family in ... almost one piece, I doubt they will complain. Much." He grinned. "And certainly not to me."

He flicked a hand at the guards, "Take them away." To Amos: "We will talk again later, scumvermin. I shall look forward to it."

CHAPTER TWO

Joseph ben Said paced restlessly through his office. It was on the top, the third story of a building well up on the slopes overlooking New Keriss. He stopped and looked down from the open window; mild salt air caressed his face, smelling of the gardens outside and faintly of the city of low, scattered buildings that stretched down to the water's edge.

How different, he thought—as always.

How different from the days before the Kolnari came. Old Keriss had occupied the same site; the airburst hadn't dug much of a crater when the city died in a moment of thermonuclear fire. But the old city had been bigger, more densely built, narrow streets as well as fine avenues. Thickest of all along the old docks, with their shrilling tenements and slums. The New Kerris was cleaner, more modern now that Bethel was in touch with the rest of the galaxy once more. Cleaner, safer, more prosperous ... although perhaps less happy than the old city had been.

Or perhaps I was happier then. His lips quirked as he remembered a lord's son down slumming, and how he'd saved that young noble from the knives of a rival gang. Then turned and found a hand extended; taken it in his own, astonished. Met Amos ben Sierra Nueva's eyes, and been lost to his old life.

That brought him back to the present; his face clenched like a fist, eyes narrowing. He sat behind the desk and keyed the screen.

"Home," he said.

It cleared, and his wife Rachel looked up in surprise from her own keyboard as his image replaced whatever she'd been working on. In the background he could hear children playing. His children . . . No. They are safe, and my duty is clear.

"Joseph!" she said, concern in her dark eyes. "Is there any news of the Prophet?"

He shook his head. "Nothing from SSS-900-C," he said. "Simeon reports no word. No trace of the Ben-isur's ship has been found; it is as if they had vanished from space-time."

He took a deep breath, and saw her face change. Rachel had come to know him too well, in the years of their marriage. Joseph held up a hand.

"Please," he said softly. "My heart, do not tear at me; this is hard enough to do. But Amos is more than my Prophet; he is the friend of my soul, my brother."

"There are younger men to do this work!"

Joseph smiled ruefully. "Are there any better trained to seek him offplanet?" he asked.

Rachel met his eyes for a moment, then glanced aside. Hers shone with unshed tears.

"Where will you go?"

"I cannot say," he said. Must not, they both knew. There was a leak in Planetary Security. "But it must be soon." He willed strength into his voice. "Do not fear, my love. We have friends beyond Bethel, as well as enemies."

"Why the fardling void can't they just say give me a bribe?" Joat Simeon-Hap demanded.

New Destinies hung in space four thousand kilometers away; much closer in the main bridge screen, of course. It wasn't very large as independent stations went, merely a cylinder ten kilometers long by one in diameter, spinning contentedly—smugly, her mind prompted—in orbit around an undistinguished orange-brown gas giant, which orbited a run-of-the-mill F-class star. That was a pinprick of violent light in the distance; closer in were a few barren rocks, none of them larger than Mars, and some asteroids.

Junk system. Junk station. Barely worth visiting because it intersected a few transit routes. There weren't many fabricators in space nearby, either. One long latticework, a graving dock that looked capable of repairing fair-sized ships or building small ones. A couple of zero-g algae farms, huge soft-looking bubbles. Some in-system traffic, miners and passenger craft and wide-rnouthed scoopships to skim and harvest the gas giants outer atmosphere. Probably they didn't pick up the litter on the station, and charged you extra for the gravity.

Joat chuckled sourly at the thought; it appealed to her sense of the ridiculous. It didn't make her less impatient. New Destinies had a reputation as one of those places that looked the other way. A fair number of the ships who docked here were in the smuggling trade, which, frankly, was what kept the station going. But a couple of generations of not noticing had an effect. Here, bribery and graft were just the way things were done. So Joat couldn't understand why none of her hints had been picked up on, or no overtures had been made in that direction.

She loved the Wyal, and not just because the ship was hers. But there were times when you had to get off the ship or run starkers, raving and frothing.

The jerk's on a power trip. She combed a hand through shoulder-length blond hair and spoke, altering her tone slightly:

"Find out who this fardling bureaucratic nightmare is, wouldja Rand?"

"You mean Dilton Tolof in Health and Immigration?"

"Yeah."

There was a confused pause.

"Joat, he's Dilton Tolof in Health and Immigration."

She rolled her eyes. "Do you have to be so literal?"

"That's the way I'm made, Joat."

"I mean find out about him."

"Why?"

"Just do it!"

"You're upset," Rand sounded surprised. "Is it me, have I caused offense?"

"No, but he has. I'd like to tailor-make a little lesson in the etiquette of negotiation for him."

"You want to benefit him?" Rand sounded mildly astonished.

She smiled slowly.

"In a sense."

"It's been my observation, Joat, that you're not inclined to return good for bad. Nor has there been any solicitation of bribery. Yet, you seem to believe that Mr. Tolof is somehow asking for one. I admit to being puzzled."

"Logic, buddy. It isn't as though this little station is the most sought-after destination in Central Worlds' space, Rand, so sheer volume of work can't be the reason for this kind of delay."

Joat frowned. Two things about her tended to make the overbearing and officious think they could push her around. One was her age. At twenty-three, Joat was extremely young to be the captain and owner-aboard of a starfaring freighter. The other was that she was the adopted daughter of Space Station Simeon-900-C and Channa Hap; the first child to be adopted by a Brain-Brawn pair. For some reason that Joat couldn't fathom, these facts were supposed to make her malleable and stupid. Or, worse, naive, which she couldn't even remember being.

"It's just the way these little, out-of-the-way places operate. Now, I don't object to baksheesh, within reason," she said in a tone that would have alarmed anyone who knew her well. If you lay on the sweet talk thick as honey, make no demands, don't insult me and you sure as blazes don't throw obstacles in my path. Maybe then, she'd pay. Maybe.

Joat spun her gimbaled pilot's chair around and fondly regarded the winking lights of her friend's "face." Technically it wasn't a person—perhaps even not really a personality, if you wanted to get philosophical—but definitely a friend.

The rows of lights that formed its countenance served no purpose but to give Rand expression and to satisfy her low taste for ancient popular entertainments. Just now, they were predominantly yellow, signaling puzzlement.

"Civil servants are like rugs—you have to whack them now and then to get the dirt out. I just want to give him a little goose to teach him not to mess with me," Joat told it.

All the lights flickered yellow.

"You want to give him a barnyard fowl?" Now Rand did sound astonished.

Joat laughed. "In this instance, Rand, a goose means a pinch on the butt to get him going." No sense in shocking a machine. Sometimes she wondered who did the component blocks she'd bought for the basis of the AI.

"Ah!" The lights flickered blue, signaling pleasure in this new understanding; then back to yellow. "But, the references I found to that use of the term referred to it as an expression of erotic interest."

"Not in this case, I assure you," she said dryly.

"Well that's why I thought you wanted to give him the bird."

Joat choked back a laugh.

"I've said something amusing," it accused.

"No, it's me. I took it wrong."

After a moment it said, "Joat, really! If I'm to avoid these verbal pitfalls it would save time if you'd simply tell me why you're laughing. Just because the information is in my files somewhere doesn't justify wasting my energy searching for it."

"So you know why I laughed?"

"You had a misspent youth."

"And a largely misspent adulthood."

"Not really. You've actually accomplished quite a lot for such a young woman. You've only been an adult legally for two years."

Joat squirmed. Praise made her feel as if she was being set up; not least because she'd used it so often and so effectively that way herself.

"Y'know, you sounded kinda exasperated there for a minute," she said lightly.

"I was. And a particularly stupid reaction it is, if I may say so."

"Hey," she shrugged, "you're the one who wanted to understand emotions."

"Understand them, not have them."

Joat raised an admonishing finger. "Knowledge is never wasted."

"While time and energy too often are. Specifically by forcing me to apply this program."

"Well, in general, emotional responses aren't voluntary," she said.

It wasn't really fair to force emotion-analogues on the AI. On the one hand I feel guilty. On the other, it's fun. Such a grubby little emotion, guilt.

"If you don't experience an unexpected reaction once in awhile, then how can you understand emotions? Or put up with 'em for that matter. Remember, understanding makes all things tolerable."

"I had fewer problems with tolerance before I was capable of exasperation! Knowledge or lack of it isn't the problem; this program is the problem."

Uh oh. Clearly Rand wanted that program gone, and was perfectly capable of erasing it.

"Oh no you don't," she said. "I didn't sweat blood creating that program just so you could erase it the first time it runs. You leave it alone. Y'hear me?'

A neatly clipped "Yes." Then: "I suppose I should be grateful that you haven't found a way to irritate me."

"I'm getting close," Joat threatened with a grin. "Frustration and irritation are in the same family, so be prepared. After all, if you want to understand someone you have to walk a kilometer in their . . ."

"Would you can the quotes, please? If I want to drown in cliches I have access to all four volumes of The Wit and Wisdom of the Known Universe. The unabridged version."

Joat pursed her lips. "Sorry. Uh, have you got anything on Dilton yet?" she prompted.

"According to station records Tolof has had numerous citations for unauthorized power-grabbing. He's exceeded his allotted limit of power seventeen times, but was fined for only the first three."

"Interesting. And what's the name of the individual who waived his penalty charges?"

"Graf Dyson. I'm searching for references to that name."

After a full minute Joat raised a brow and prompted, "Anything?"

"No. Nothing significant, anyway. He lives here and is employed by the Bureau of Fines and Levies, but he has never been recorded as being guilty of the most minor infractions. He leads an exceptionally ordered and modest life, and his credit balance reflects that. Puzzling."

"For a citizen of New Destinies it's unbelievable." Another effect of catering to smugglers; their awareness of what constituted bad behavior was deeply impaired. "Do any of our friends or acquaintances show his name on any of their documents?"

"Yes," Rand replied promptly. "Captain Yandit has received several citations for disturbing the peace, but was never fined. Records show that the fine was waived by Graf Dyson."

"Well then, as Graf Dyson is a friend of a friend, I think we can safely claim acquaintance. Don't you?"

"No."

Joat linked her fingers and cracked her knuckles with a flourish. "Put me through to that mudpuppy in the health office, buddy, and watch me finesse this."

Dilton Tolofs pinched face appeared on the screen.

"New Destinies, Health and Immigration." Then he realized to whom he was speaking and smiled, a thin and somehow sour expression that fitted his pinched face. "Ms. Simeon, if you continue to pester me like this, I'm never going to be able to process your records."

"Well, I was talking to Graf, Graf Dyson? He asked me what was taking me so long. I've got a little present for him, and you know how impatient he gets. We're real good friends." She simpered at the man on the screen in her best fluff-head imitation. "Anyway, he said mentioning his name might serve to, you know, expedite things. Like, as a favor to a friend?"

Tolofs narrow face flushed and he glanced nervously around.

"You know . . . G. D.?"

"Sure do. Captain Yandit, you may have dealt with him, huge, Ursinoid fellow with a temper? He introduced us at a party one time, and we hit it off right away." Joat snapped her fingers, indicating the speed with which she and Dyson had become fast friends. "Graf said you guys were real close, mentioned that you'd done some deals?' She raised an inquiring brow and smiled knowingly.

Dilton's sour smile turned slowly into the expression of a man who'd just opened a box of chocolates and found maggots.

"Well," he said, "heh heh, your documentation appears to be in order, no need to be, uh, nitpicky."

He punched a few keys and her comp received the "cleared" signal that would allow Joat and her crew the freedom of the station and permit docking robots to begin unloading the Wyal's cargo.

"Thank you so much," she gushed and gave him a wink. 'Til be sure and tell G. D. what a pal you were."

Joat punched off the connection and sneered, "No need to be nitpicky." She shivered. "Ghu, but I hate bureaucrats."

The ship rumbled and there was a slight swaying sensation. Docking tractors attached blinked across the screen, and a grid swelled to fill the view. She kept her hands poised over the controls, but the AI and Stationside kept the Wyal steady as she slid towards the non-rotating docking ring at the north pole of New Destinies. About the running of the station and their docking procedures, the New Destinites were consummate professionals.

"Especially you, Dilton," she added in the same tone. "You worm."

"Whozzat?"

The air scrubbers whirred into overdrive as a sudden, overwhelmingly sweet and spicy aroma invaded the control cabin, followed by Alvec Dia, one of her crew. In fact, he was her crew: with an Admiralty Grade artificial intelligence, a three thousand kiloton freighter didn't need more than two.

"Gak!" Joat wheezed, waving her hand in front of her face. "Alvec, what is that stench?"

"Stench, Boss?" Alvec seemed genuinely puzzled. "That's Senalgal Spice, the favorite cologne of the Rose of New Destinies."

He put his hands on his hips and raised a brow, archly. Or as archly as a middle-aged man with scar tissue across the knuckles of both hands and a build like a freight carboy could. Joat couldn't help grinning at him, and an answering smile split the rough, lived-in face.

"You have a lady-friend here?" she asked, trying to breathe shallowly. He had friends of that sort on a number of stations, all answering to the name of Rose.

"Not yet." He winked. "But I aim to."

"Do me a favor, Al, air out a little before you go a-hunting. I wouldn't want you arrested for assault this early in the day. I'd have to bail you out."

"I'll be careful, Mother. We cleared?" He jerked a thumb dockside.

At Joat's nod he waggled his fingers farewell and left with a jaunty step.

She watched him leave. The monitors showed him dodging cargo robots trundling forward across the open space just inside the hull of the docking ring. Then, taking an experienced spacer's leap across to the entrance of the spindle, he grabbed the handholds, did a neat turn and went feet-first through the hatchway, ready for the transition to spin gravity in the core.

There was a clanking through the hull as the robots boarded; she watched on screens slaved to the interior monitors as one busily rushed up to grab a pallet, loaded it onto the flatbed of its body, then hustled off to dockside to unload it onto a stack already piling up on a larger float that would take the shipment to a warehouse.

Joat watched them idly for a few moments, then her interest was caught by their human supervisor.

He was tall, with a soldiers posture but a soft gut. His eyes . . . they never stopped tracking. Back, forth, back; the eyes of someone expecting trouble, someone who'd been expecting it so long they couldn't stop. Scarred face, with the distinctive red splotch on one cheek. At some time in the not-too-distant past he'd been caught in an explosive decompression. Not an uncommon industrial accident off-planet, but . . . His uniform was just a little too . . . something. It fit him, it wasn't new, but somehow, it wasn't right.

He wore it as though it wasn't completely familiar, Joat realized. It had been his hand fumbling for a pocket that wasn't there that had caught her eye. Joat sat up straight.

Who? Nobody she could think of was gunning for her right now—angry with her, yes; ready to do her the dirty in any underhanded way they could, yes. But not killing mad, not enough to hire muscle to go after her. And this man was obviously muscle of some sort. His whole body screamed retired mercenary. But why would a retired mercenary accept a pick-up job on New Destinies?

Not a mere, then. So, he was a cop. And he was watching the Wyal.

But why were they watching her? Dilton hadn't had time to sic this guy on her, even if he'd the guts to do it.- Neither had Dyson, whoever he was, because he couldn't possibly have reacted this fast to the little scam she'd just pulled on his buddy. He probably didn't even know about it, at least not yet.

Her mind went to the small mysterious package she was carrying for Central Worlds Security. Did New Destinies know about it? Were they after it? Was it something that would incriminate her?

Joat frowned. She wasn't about to risk her ship for some CenSec song and dance. The package was supposed to be dropped with the local operative at The Anvil, one of the bars around the rim of the station. She glanced at the time, she was due there in one and a half Earth standard hours.

Joat gritted her teeth. So I owe them. That doesn't mean they own me. More to the point, it didn't mean they could endanger her ship. She'd drop it all right, and then she'd tell them what they could do with their special courier packages.

"Rand, I gotta go."

"Now? Before unloading is completed?"

"You see that osco on monitor four?"

"The unloading supervisor?"

"Yeah. He's a cop."

"He can't be, Joat, he's wearing a supervisor's uniform. The police uniform for this port is very different, I assure you."

Rand put a holo snap of a local policeman on screen for her edification.

"I know what a cop looks like, Rand, in or out of uniform. And that's a cop, and he's watching us."

"I'm impressed by your prescience, Joat. Why is he watching us?"

"I don't know and I don't intend to find out. I'm going out the side door."

"The . . . ? Joat, we don't have a side door."

"I'm going out the service hatch and into the station via one of theirs," she said, briskly closing out the file she'd been idly working on while waiting for clearance.

"That's illegal . . ." . "I know that, but . . ."

"And dangerous!"

"I'm relying on you to help me avoid getting caught," she explained. Joat wondered how Rand would choose to respond, for she'd given it almost complete autonomy. It might decide to have nothing to do with this scheme, which would complicate things tremendously.

"Could we talk deal?" Rand asked smoothly.

Joat's eyebrows went up and she cocked her head.

"Excuse me?"

"That exasperation program . . . ?"

Joat frowned and folded her arms thoughtfully. Then she sighed.

"Okay, deal, you can erase the program. Now will you help me?"

"I'll do my best." Rand's voice conveyed pride in self combined with disapproval of her plans.

Joat supressed a smile. Sometimes Rand was downright prissy. She wondered if she'd unintentionally programmed it that way—it couldn't have caught it from her behavior, that was sure.

"Don't worry Rand."

"When you say not to worry, worry becomes imperative."

"Where's the stations nearest service hatch to Wyed?" she asked.

Rand threw a schematic on the screen, replacing the smiling policeman. Wyal was represented by a blinking yellow dot, the nearest service hatch blinked red.

"Now, show me the surveillance cameras."

A pause, then Rand indicated them on the schematic in blue.

"Whew," Joat sighed. "They have pretty good coverage. Any chance you can hack into the surveillance network and simply run a tape of empty space while I'm out there?"

"Doubtful. With so many suspect elements sharing the station's amenities, New Destinies has a fairly sophisticated security system. Something of that complexity would probably activate an alarm."

"Fardles." She drummed her fingers on the console. "What can you tell me about the lock?"

Rand threw up another schematic. "It's a standard design. Nothing complicated, with the usual tell-tales in place." As it spoke small arrows blinked on indicating the areas spoken of. "There are cameras in the corridor outside the service hatch."

Joat brushed her hair back. Time for another trim, she thought inconsequentially. She went to a locker at the rear of the bridge compartment and palmed the sensor. It opened, and she began to take out various useful items and slot them into pockets and less obvious hiding places in her taupe overall; also in her belt, in the heels of her boots, and one or two in special cavities in her molars.

"Is there any time when the route I'll have to traverse and the lock itself isn't under observation?"

That came out as a mumble, since her fingers were in the back of her mouth, but Rand had excellent voiceprint filters.

"For approximately ten seconds the route and the lock are clear. As it won't alter their function, I may be able to slow the sweep of the cameras so that you have forty seconds," Rand told her. "I can do nothing about the telltales, though, and the cameras inside are stationary."

She considered the diagram before her.

"It'll take me twelve seconds to get from Wyal to the lock," she murmured.

"Optimistically."

'Twelve seconds." She grinned. "And if I can't silence a tell-tale in twenty-eight seconds I deserve whatever happens to me. Can you take out the camera in the corridor?"

"I believe so. But it will surely be considered suspicious."

"Feh!" Joat made a contemptuous face and a dismissive gesture. "It probably happens all the time."

Then she rose and laced her fingers together, cracking her knuckles briskly. "Let's do it. You're in charge of the Wyal until I return. Don't accumulate too much time on the station’s virtual reality net— we can't afford it."

"It's research," Rand said indignantly. "My interactions with humans increase my versatility."

"You can research Alvec and me for free," Joat said firmly, running a mental checklist of the devices she was carrying. A few more? No, the only really useful item would be a laser welder—you could do really astonishing things with a laser welder, if you knew how—but it was a bit conspicuous.

Useful, though. It was a pity. She and a couple of other students at Vega Central Institute—Simeon had sent her there for six months—had cut down a bronze statue of the Founder, cut it in half, and rewelded it around a shower fixture in the quarters of the Dean of Cybernetics. And she hadn't had to use anything but a hand-cutter and a floater platform to do it, either.

Actually Simeon had sent her to Vega Central for a year. They'd sent her back after six months.

Bureaucrats, she thought. No sense of humor at all.

Joat tied her hair back in a ponytail and paused to study herself in the screen set to mirror beside the airlock; large, gray-blue eyes stared solemnly back, examining delicate features in a sharp-boned face. Not much trace of the feral child she'd been when Simeon and Channa found her hiding in the ventilation ducts of SSS-900-C; she'd been living in a nest of stolen blankets and cobbled-together

computer parts. Good training to be a high-tech guerrilla during the Kolnari occupation of the Station, but not so hot as a preparation for life.

She pursed her lips and looked at the package she was to deliver. / must have grown up. I haven't opened it.

CenSec would have all sorts of cyberdog guardians built in, but that just increased the itch. Her fingers twitched as if they held micromanipulators and a datacode bar. She sighed and shook her head. No, it wasn't worth the hassle. She'd made up her mind to that the first time she'd agreed to take on a CenSec shipment at Simeons request.

The less she knew, she'd told herself, the better. Because CenSec was the kind of organization that considered you were in their debt if you did them a favor. They started out owing you and ended up owning you. That might appeal to straight-arrow types brought up in boring rectitude, who fell down on their knees in thanks at getting to play Galactic Spy.

Not me, Joat thought defiantly. Nobody's gonna get a piece of my soul. She'd gotten far more adventure than she wanted by the age of twelve. And she knew that, for preference, adventure was somebody else in deep doodly, far, far away.

She gave herself one last appraising look, then picked up the CenSec package and zipped it into one of her pockets before heading for the suit-storage locker.

Joat suited up quickly. It was a process she'd always handled well, winning a fair number of credits in Brawn school betting on just how fast she could do it.

No gruddy sense of humor there either, she thought. Her knack for separating her fellow students from their disposable income was just one of many reasons she'd finally been asked to leave. By the time they finally got around to asking her, though, she was already half packed. I don't understand how Channa ever got through without freezing into an icicle. Then again, a lot of people thought she had.

The fact was she and her teachers and fellow students were fundamentally incompatible. She regarded them as too stiff-necked, they saw her as far too flexible.

Her only concern in leaving Brawn training had been the possibility that she might be disappointing her adoptive parents. She grinned reminiscently, remembering their words as she stepped out of the Station airlock—Simeon had waited, "standing" beside Channa in his favorite vid persona, a big blond bruiser with a dueling scar and a Centauri Jets cap turned backwards.

"Toldja," he'd said blithely.

"I knew they'd never hammer you into a straight arrow," Channa said with a warm smile. "You were born to be independent."

"Or to hang," Simeon added.

Joat tapped the lock controls. Air bled out; the telltales in the rim of the helmet below her chin showed hard vac. She crouched in the open door of the lock, studying the surface of the station, pronged and spiked with various sensors and antennae. This close even a modest station loomed immense, a metallic god-sized lathe twirling forever against the orange glow of its planet. It turned with a slow ponderous inevitability; at this range your gut refused to see it as an artifact. She turned her head, looking for the flashing red light that indicated the location of the service hatch.

Joat sighed. This little excursion would be so much easier if she'd never revealed the secret of the device that had rendered her invisible to virtually all sensors and recording devices. Simeon had insisted on letting everyone know how to counter it. Of course the patent had accounted for a big part of the down-payment on

her ship. Create the problem, solve the problem, collect the money, she thought.

Ah, well, New Destinies was one of the few windowless stations. They'd spun it up from the nickel-iron of a single asteroid, and nobody had bothered putting in luxuries. So at least she didn't have to worry about some tourist catching her in the act with their holo camera and immortalizing this exploit for the delight of station security.

Light strobed across her target. She estimated the angle and aimed the magnetic grapple built into the sleeve of her suit, leaning forward, arm extended.

"Ready," she said into her suit com. "Say when, Rand."

"Standing by, Joat." Rand paused a moment. "Now."

There was a slight twitch that pushed her arm gently backwards as she fired the grapple. The contact plate spun out on its near-invisible line and clung to the station’s skin about a meter from the small service hatch. Joat activated the mechanism in her sleeve that would reel her towards the station, then gave a jerk on the line that propelled her outward.

Joat pulled her feet forward and her knees up against the suit's resistance, rolling herself head over heels in a controlled somersault; timing it so that the stickfield on the soles of her boots would strike first, and her bent legs absorb the impact.

When she left Wyal's gravity field the blood in her veins leapt within her, rushing to her head in a dizzying surge. The weightlessness made every part of her feel strange, as though she'd been bounced upward, never coming down, only climbing, soaring. Swimming in the universal sea, a friend at Brawn school had called it. No lie. The few moments of queasiness until she adjusted was worth it; then gravity returned as centrifugal force spun her outward. The stationary docking ring fell behind, and suddenly up was towards the rotating bulk of New Destinies. It was the docking ring that seemed to move, with the Wyal embedded in it like a pencil in a sharpener.

She felt closest to Simeon, her adopted father, when she moved through space in her suit. Encased, as he was, in a machine that kept her alive in a murderous environment, yet personally in contact with the infinite.

Joat watched the universe flick by, ship, stars, station, three times before she reached her target.

The stickfield on her boots held her to the station against the surge of recoil and Joat clasped an extended hand around a utility handle jutting out from the station's skin. Her inertia surged, balanced and stabilized by the grip and the automatic flex of leg and thigh. The anchor cord finished reeling itself back into the sleeve of her suit with a small definite click, de-energizing the disk and whipping it back into the slot. Her eyes were telling her that she stood upright on a huge metal plain. Weight said that she was hanging from her feet with a great metal plain above her. Both were wrong, and she had no time to waste.

"Now," she muttered. "Down the rabbit hole, or I'll be very late."

Her suited fingers traced the exterior of the airlock. Standard model, a fiber-steel oval with memory putty sealant around the edges and a mechanical doglock wheel in the center for emergencies. No use trying that, it would be safetied. Instead she took out a multitool and began opening the access cover of the lock control, whistling soundlessly between her teeth.

Well, and aren't you clever, she thought, as the first choice undid the couplers that held it closed. You found some of the weirdest nonstandard components on these out-of-the-way Stations.

Her suit had some nonstandard components, too. She undipped an extension datalink from her belt and clicked the connector into the link on the control card. Then she closed her eyes and subvocalized a series of code words.

A chittering voice sounded in her inner ear. "Whhhaaat's up, boss?"

"Got a little job for you, Speedy."

She opened her eyes again. Playing across the thin-film crystal of her suit visor was a holo of a ferret. Not a real ferret; this one was vaguely anthromorphic and wore a beret. One hand clutched a smokestick in a long ivory holder. Stylish, she thought. There was no point in being mechanical when you designed an AI, even the fairly simple specialized type.

This one, for example, was a specialist in locks.

"Cycle this airlock, but don't let anyone know about it."

"Rrrright, boss."

The holo image vanished. It was replaced by a schematic of the circuitry and the control program for the access. The picklock program slunk through the commercial programming with sinuous ease, then struck. Red slivers appeared on the green circuitry, marking the spots where false data was being fed back into the system's central monitor. That severed the controls from the Stations computers, at least for a while.

Of course, there was always the chance that some interfering type would be actually looking at the inside door of the airlock when she came through. Harder to fool the ol' Eyeball Mark I.

"Rand, is there any way for you to tie into the vid monitor covering this accessway and let me know if anybody's out there?"

"No, Joat, there isn't. I've already knocked it out. But this access is located in a maintenance area that's not very thickly populated. It's a chance you'll have to take. You have seven seconds."

"Fardles!"

Joat imagined some passerby attracted to the mysteriously cycling lock, watching in puzzlement the flashing of the warning light that showed the lock was in use.

What if there's a klaxon or a bell? she wondered. She sighed mentally. Then I get arrested, I guess. Bad planning, Joat. If the worst happens it'll serve you right for being so impulsive.

She gripped the handholds on either side, disdaining the steps set into the doorway, and popped herself feet-first through the hatch with a grunt. That left her straddling the entranceway, now a hole between her feet. Reaching back, she pulled the hatch closed behind her and glanced at the chrono display down at the chinbar of her helmet. Well within the time limit.

Jack Of All Trades strikes again, she thought, slightly smug. Breaking-and-entering was one of those pleasant hobbies you didn't have much opportunity for when you'd gone legitimate. A pleasure to indulge the skill on good, legal—well, quasi-legal—Central Worlds business.

Air hissed into the narrow airlock, quickly growing thick enough to hear through the exterior pickups. A faint ping told her when the pressure was near-enough ambient. Immediately she popped the seal on her helmet and began stripping off the suit, wrinkling her nose slightly at the metallic smell. No excuse for that, in a station—even a small one.

Snaps, locks, and seals parted before her fingers with the easy grace of a lifetime’s practice; she had the full measure of finicky neatness common to the vacuum-born. She folded the suit tightly, tucked the gauntlets into the helmet and pulled a small black rectangle from a pocket. It clung when she tapped it onto the inner airlock door over her head, and she snapped a thin cord into a jack on its side. The other end of the cord was pressed against the bone behind one ear. She scanned the sounds from the other side of the metal.

Nothing, she thought cheerfully. Nothing but mechanical noise, none of the irregular thumps and gurgles that indicated an organic sapient. Carbon-based life-forms had messy sonic signatures.

"Rand, can you give me the name of an outfitter? I might as well have my suit seals checked as carry it around with me."

"There are sixteen outfitters licensed to maintain suits. The nearest specialty store is Stondat's Enviro-Systems Emporium, Spin Level 3"—that would be counting inward from the outermost deck, standard throughout human space—"Stack 14b, corridor 9. The camera block is running." Rands passionless voice took on a faint overtone of contempt. "Very bad security."

Joat smiled. Her attitudes towards sloppy workmanship had rubbed off on the AI. She used a small extensible probe to key the interior door of the airlock and trotted up the ladder into an access corridor running both ways until it lost itself in the curve of the Station's outer hull.

"External cameras are back online, no detection," Rand said.

"Grudly. Out for now." Broadcasts were a needless risk.

The corridor was bare except for the color-coded conduits and pipes that snaked in orderly rectilinear patterns over walls and ceilings. An occasional small maintenance machine trundled by, usually following a pipe rather than the floor.

And footfalls rang. Joat felt herself relax, vision growing bright with the sudden clarity of extreme concentration. The young man who walked in from a side-corridor was wearing the same Stationside police uniform as the one in Rand's holosnap, but his face had the pleasant formlessness of youth. Sheltered youth.

"Oh hey, am I glad to see you!" Joat caroled, an expression of surprised relief on her face. "We just got in, and I'm looking for Stondat's. The suit outfitter? I've obviously gone wrong," she hoisted the suit up a bit with a little grunt, "and this thing is getting heavier by the meter. Where am I?"

She let a trace of wail into the last words, making her eyes go wide in an expression she knew knocked six standard years off her apparent age.

"Let me show you, ma'am. These corridors are for Stationside Maintenance only."

He led the way to a lift, reaching past her to palm the entry. Her hand brushed across his arm.

"There, that's set for Spin Level 3. You can't miss it."

Joat's smile turned broader and more sardonic as the door irised shut. Insect-tiny in her ear, she could hear the young policeman's report via the sticktight she'd brushed across his uniform to blend with the fabric. It was a carbon-chain type, too, almost impossible to scan and biodegradable.

"Just someone who got lost," he said. "Some vapor-brain from a miner family-ship, probably, can't find her way around anything bigger than a thousand cubic meters. Proceeding."

CHAPTER THREE

Bros Sperin sat quietly at his table, a drink in his hand, and watched the patrons of The Anvil enjoying themselves. Extremely respectable place, he thought. Perfect for a dropshop. Criminals and spies only haunted known dens of vice in bad fiction, or in places much farther from the right side of the law than New Destinies.

"No, thank you, gentlebeing," he said for the seventh time that night.

The tall—possibly human, probably female, but you couldn't tell sometimes without a xenology program— bobbed her/its/his crest and swayed gracefully off to the sunken dance floor that hung in the center of The Anvil's main room. It was surrounded by tables of spectators, diners, and tourists. Bros Sperin himself wasn't out of place, a man a little above medium height and densely athletic of build, brown of skin and eye, with short black hair cut to resemble a sable cap. His jacket was brown as well, loosely woven raw silk, belted with silver above black tights and low boots. A soft hat lay on the table beside his long-fingered hands, covering a belt data-unit.

He looked relaxed, which was as much a lie as the appearance of a well-to-do merchant out for a peaceful night on the town in this costly, pleasant nightclub.

Given the number of serious deals that went down here it was in the regular patron's best interests to see to it that no one got too rowdy, and the management was very solicitous of their guest's interests. Those who insisted on getting out of hand mysteriously and permanently lost their taste for dancing at The Anvil. So did people who annoyed the regular patrons.

If they only knew who I really was, they'd probably be very annoyed indeed, the Central Worlds agent thought. Annoyed enough that he'd disappear with a quiet finality.

Bros raised his glass to his lips and checked his watch. Then glanced at the door. There she was, right on time. Odd, how she looked so little like the scarred, scared child he'd met when he was a lieutenant in Naval Intelligence, assigned to SSS-900-C in the aftermath of the Kolnari raid. And yet what she was now was what he'd seen in potentia then, hidden beneath the claws-and-teeth defensiveness her short life had left.

Those straight women who noticed her looked askance at her drab spacer overalls, the gay women observed her over their glasses with mild curiosity. Various aliens had reactions less comprehensible, but they shared a certain caution. The men never looked at her at all.

Their loss, Bros thought. She was beautiful, though she played it down and attitude did the rest.

Joat reached the bar and fixed her gaze on the busy bartender. He'd already noticed her and had caught Bros Sperin's eye. Sperin gave him the high sign to give her a drink as arranged, and to tell her it was from him.

When the bartender placed the drink in front of her, Joat looked at it as if it were a Sondee mudpuppy. The bartender pointed and said a few words to her and Joat turned to look at Bros.

Their eyes met and she raised one brow, suspicious and unsmiling. He grinned and waved her over. After a moment she nodded, picked up the drink and sauntered to his table. He rose to meet her and she smiled and lifted the brow again over his courtesy.

She raised the drink in a little salute.

"Thank you," she said and looked him over, then frowned slightly. "We've never met before, have we?"

"No, I've seen you at a distance, but we've never met."

"Then . . . how do you know what I like to drink?" she asked, curious, suspicious.

Bros grinned down at her.

"It's a game I play, matching drinks to faces. I usually guess right. So ... do I have you pegged?"

She nodded with a little smile. At least that far, Joat thought.

"Please, sit down." He indicated a seat.

"Thanks," she said, and looked around. "But I can't. I'm here to meet someone."

"I know. Me."

Oh, Ghu, Joat thought. I may lose my lunch. How could such a neat looking guy have such a macho-maniacal attitude. Pity.

To Bros she looked both weary and disappointed at the apparent pick-up line; but smiled as she turned to go. / don't blame her. That one was probably a cliche when bearskins were the latest fashion.

"The name's Sperin. Bros Sperin."

Her eyes went wide. The spy?

"I thought you were dead!" she blurted.

He laughed. "A rumor I've carefully spread. It's useful. Actually, I only felt like I was dead. They put me back together looking different, and they've had me behind a desk the last few years."

They looked at each other for a few moments.

"Shall we sit down or," he indicated the dance floor, "shall we dance?"

Joat sat. I don't think so. I don't want to get any closer to you than arm's length, thanks. Something about him made her wary on a personal level. She wondered what the heck was going on.

"I usually deal with Sal," she said uneasily. And I wish I were now. Not that Sal was such a great guy or anything. But something's up, my antennae are tingling.

"He's around somewhere. I understand you have an unbirthday present for him."

She nodded, frowning again. An unbirthday present. She sneered mentally. That's cute. "Actually, it's more of a parting gift. Something that might go well with a broken arm."

"In that case he'll be sorry to have missed you. I'll be sure to pass along your good wishes." Bros picked up his glass and looked at her over the rim. "But I needed to talk to you."

"About what?" Joat kept her face and voice as carefully neutral as his.

Bros felt the package placed in his lap; she'd done it so smoothly he hadn't noticed her hand going under the table. Whoa! he thought, startled. What am I doing out by myself if I can't even keep an eye on the girl's hands?

He didn't show his surprise and dismay however. His face was dead calm when he said, "There's something we need you to do, someone we want you to talk to. We thought the Wyal would make a good place for a meeting."

Joat put her untasted drink on the table and gave it a little shove away from herself. Glad I didn't touch that, she thought. Who knows what kind of go-along syrup they put in it. She didn't like the way this meeting was going. Of course the drink could be intended as a bribe. CenSec's cheap enough, Ghu knows. But there was a heavy-duty hook in here somewhere and one lousy drink was insufficient bait to hide it.

"I've been told before—with heavy regret—that I'd be terrible at your kind of work. As if I'd asked. Y'know? As if I'd want it." She crossed her legs. That stuff's for adrenaline addicted university students. Me, I've got a life. "Now, all of a sudden, I get this clammy feeling that I'm being recruited. I mean, Bros Sperin comes out from behind his desk to meet little me. And reels off quite an interesting wish list, by the way; something needs doing, someone needs talking to and how about my place for a meeting. Oooh! It's so exciting." Joat began a slow burn. This is just a little presumptuous. Don't you think, Bros? "What makes you think I'd be interested?"

"You've done things for us before."

"An occasional passenger, or a package delivery, that's it." Her voice was sharper than she'd intended, and she saw that he was taken aback. But then, she'd come here with the intention of cutting her ties to CenSec, not strengthening them. And in any case Wyal is off-limits to these people. I can't just let them get away with deciding to use my ship like it's their property.

"And got cash on the barrel head," he reminded her grimly. Her attitude was a surprise and it was beginning to annoy him.

"Of course."

"So what's your problem?"

From long practice, Joat froze her reaction, which was to flare up and twist his nose for him. "Well," she said sweetly, "so far as a meeting goes, my ship is under surveillance. Not very clandestine, wouldn't you agree?"

Bros grinned.

"That was Sal's idea. He thought it would confer status on me." He cocked his head at her. "Pretty obvious, was it?'

"He might as well have been in uniform. I thought he might be after . . . Sal's present." She glared at him. I don't believe this! she thought, outraged. I could have been arrested and fined, just for trying to keep this package a secret. Meanwhile he's hiring the cops as escorts! "You couldn't have advised me, of course."

He shrugged.

"Need to know. Sal thought it would make things easier. I don't see why it's a problem."

"It makes me look like trouble. My reputation is for doing things well and discreetly; it's how I make my living. This does not help."

He rubbed his upper lip to hide his smile. She was going to love this.

"I didn't request a guard for your ship in my CenSec capacity. In fact, they'd be quite startled to learn I was with CenSec, here. Bros Sperin is an extremely respectable smuggler, with an hilariously inappropriate name. At least as far as New Destinies is concerned—I deal in arms, mostly, and fencing loot—and the local police give excellent value for money."

Her eyes narrowed. "Oh. Lovely. Do you realize how much higher on the bribe schedule my ship will be, now that they think I'm running with the big boys? What are you trying to do to me?"

"It's S.O.P., Joat. To be frank, my cover is more important than your budget." He shrugged. "It's all part of building the right picture in the minds of certain people. I assure you, when you learn exactly who this meeting is with, you'll take a personal interest." He smiled. "Trust me."

She snorted an unspoken not likely, but he was sure he'd caught a sparkle of curiosity in her eyes.

Good, he thought. Aloud he said, "I'll call off the cop, since he was ineffective anyway. Will that help?"

"Sure." She rose and left.

I may have overplayed that a little, he thought dryly as he watched her walk away. He rubbed his face vigorously. I'm badly out of practice. I used to know better than to make assumptions about the players. Still, they were reasonable assumptions based on knowledge she didn't have at the moment. She'd probably come around.

Joat Simeon-Hap was a righteous woman.

In her way.

Joat grinned with a cold anger. Master Spy isn't as subtle as he thinks. Five years ago she might have jumped at the chance to get on the CenSec payroll. Not now. Wyal was hers; yes, Simeon and Channa— and Joseph—had helped bankroll her, but she'd paid them all off. The ship was hers, and she was meeting payroll and running expenses and putting something by. Meanwhile she was seeing the universe. On her terms, and nobody else's. Which is just the way I like things, thank you very much, Bros Sperin!

A passerby jumped back in alarm from the glare she gave as she shouldered by him.

She hoped Alvec was back from sniffing the Roses, or rather, letting them sniff him. Joat grinned at the thought of Bros Sperin's dark face when he walked up to an empty berth.

The docking area was nearly deserted as she pulled herself into the zero-g section and walked towards her berth, skimming her feet along the deck to keep their sticktights on the metal. Nobody was around except a couple of Ursinoids, crewfolk off one of their lumbering freighters, hairy creatures with blunt muzzles standing nearly two meters tall and strapped around with various knives, energy weapons and slug-throwers. She chatted with them for a few minutes, using their shaggy bulks to disguise her slow scan of the area. That was no strain; she liked Ursinoids, even if they did always try to sell you a collection of lethal ironmongery. They were good types on the whole, extremely independent, but not very subtle.

Bros had been as good as his word. The cop was gone. She wondered if she was under more covert surveillance.

Well, how would she know? Electronics she might detect, but Sperin should be able to call upon better talent than the local security forces.

As she passed a row of containers stacked head high, a hand flashed out and grabbed her arm.

Joat spun into the direction of the grip, stripping her arm out with leverage against the thumb. The same motion flung her backwards half a dozen paces and flipped the vibroknife into her right hand, held low with the keening drone of the slender rod-blade wailing a warning of how easily it would slide through flesh and bone. She filled her lungs to shout—the Ursinoids would be at her side in seconds, loaded for ... well, loaded like bears. Heavily armed bears.

Joseph ben Said held up both hands palms out and grinned at her. The sleeves of his loose robe fell away from thick, corded forearms where the scars lay white against the olive skin. He raised one blond eyebrow.

"So fierce, little one? Perhaps I should not have taught you so well, eh?"

"Joe!" she said, moving forward to slap his arm lightly. "If I was still on your training protocols, you'd be dead right now."

She looked him up and down. The Bethelite never seemed to change; still as fit and muscular as when

she'd met him ten years ago, his blue eyes mild and calm between the squint-wrinkles of a man who spent much time in the desert. Perhaps a few strands of silver hair among the gold. He had been born in Keriss before the Kolnari came, a child of the dock-side slums, and right-hand man to Amos ben Sierra Nueva when the future Prophet had been a radical and half an outcast.

Now he was Deacon of the Right Hand—head of the Bethelite police and counter-espionage forces.

"What are you doing here? Is Amos here too?"

He shook his head.

"No, I am here alone." He cast a meaningful glance back and forth. "Look, I have a gift."

He reached into the hand-luggage at his feet and tossed a heavy bottle of green ceramic in her direction. Joat caught it with a yelp of protest at the risk; she recognized the brand. The surface was pebbled and cool, the fastener held in with twisted copper wire and sealed with wax. Despite herself she felt her eyes mist a little. Joe was always a good osco, she thought. And he'd taught her a great deal, some of it things that Simeon and Channa never suspected.

"Bethel-brewed Arrack," he said and kissed the tips of his fingers, dropping into the singsong of a bazari merchant for a moment. "From the Prophet's private store. Blessed with the heat of Saffron's golden sun."

She grinned.

"C'mon aboard, I've got someone I want you to meet."

Joat led the way up into Wyal's berth and spoke:

"Knock, knock?"

"Who's there?" The cybernetic voice sounded as if it would wince if it could.

"Jo."

"Jo who?"

"Jo'at the door."

Joseph did wince, in sympathy. "Among Simeons many crimes, not the least was teaching you his depraved sense of humor."

"Tell me the news from Bethel, tell me about Rachel," Joat said. She cycled the lock closed and stood while the sensor field swept them for unauthorized sticktights. "And tell me what's wrong."

"Rachel is well, the children are well . . . and what should be wrong, my young friend?" The blue eyes blinked guilelessly at her.

"Joe, unlike Amos, you're no great traveler. If you've left Bethel and Rachel and it wasn't with Amos, there's a reason. What is it?"

"All in good time," he said.

Joat smiled wryly, restraining an impulse to grind her teeth. From Joseph she could take the odd mystery.

"Joat, I am most impressed by the quality of this AI, but it is a machine, nothing more." He looked at her with a frown of worry. "You know the difference, between a person and a machine?'

Joat sipped her Arrack. The liquid slid down her throat like a living fire with velvet fur, leaving a ghost-taste of ripe dates.

"Joe, I'm a programming expert. If I don't know the difference, who does? And if you say, Joat you are alone too much, I'll punch you in the nose, I swear I will."

"I taught you better than that," he said, mock-offended.

"If you are naked and your feet are nailed to the floor, you may hit an enemy in the face with your fist. Short of that, use something more effective," Joat quoted in a sing-song voice. "I remember."

She leaned forward: "Look, if Simeon can turn his AI into his dog—to be precise, an Irish Setter—why can't I go a step further and turn mine into a friend?" She lowered her voice confidentially. "We're not romantically involved if that's your worry."

He laughed and shook his head at her.

"You, little rebel, should be married, with a husband to fix your wayward thoughts upon. Look at how my Rachel has prospered by my side."

Joat pulled a judicious expression and nodded solemnly.

"You're right, Joe, she's quite a gal."

Yup, she's not a demented, murderous, traitorous bitch any more.

Now she was Joseph's executive assistant in the Bethelite Security Forces, handling the technical end of things. She also ran their rancho, a sun drenched spread at Twin Springs and was a devoted mother to their two children, Simeon Amos and Channa Joat.

"Marriage would make a new woman of you, you should try it. I know!" He flung his hands up as if struck by inspiration—but did not, she noted, spill a single drop of the Arrack.

"Marry me, Joat! Become my second wife and you can live on the rancho and ride to your hearts content. You can take care of the children. Think how restful your life would be! And I swear that I would be as faithful to you as to my beloved Rachel."

"Joe! How can you claim to be faithful to Rachel while you're asking another woman to marry you?"

"Because I am asking you to marry me. If I were asking you to be my mistress, then I would be unfaithful. There is a tremendous difference, you must agree."

Joat blinked. He was joking—but to a Bethelite, that made perfect sense. There were times when she forgot Joseph was from the deep backwoods of the universe.

"Hunh! If I ever do hitch up with someone, I'm not gonna be anyone's second anything." She took a sip of Arrack. "I want a virgin, myself."

A discreet cough from behind brought her to her feet, spuming around, knife in her hand again, ready for throwing.

Her eyes widened at the sight of Bros Sperin, arms crossed over his broad chest, leaning casually against the hatchway.

"How did you get in here?' Wait a minute. Not only was the hatch locked and dogged, but Rand should have warned me—and the motion sensors should have gone off—and . . .

He shrugged.

"The lock was open, I knew you were expecting me, so I came in. Is that a problem?"

"It was not open. I do take some rudimentary precautions."

"It wasn't locked down. Not," he added with an annoying smile, "locked down very securely, that is."

"Yes, it was," she said through clenched teeth.

He shrugged again, and spread his hands. He was there. Joat felt an overwhelming urge to kick him.

"Joat," Joseph said before she could speak. "You asked me what had happened to bring me here. Now is the time to discuss the matter."

"Maybe I should make sure my hatch is locked," she said sullenly.

"No problem," Bros said, walking around her to swing his lean body into the pilot's chair with authoritative ease. "I took care of it." It was the first time he'd gotten a spontaneous reaction from her and he was feeling a bit smug about it. Then he glanced at the Bethelite seated beside him and grew serious again. To Joseph he said, "You asked for my presence here, excellent sir. I'm most anxious to hear why."

Joseph took a deep breath; Joat saw that his fingers were white from the pressure of his clasp. Joe was not a man who put his feelings on display like this. Her irritation fell away—not forgotten, but filed.

"Our prophet, Amos ben Sierra Nueva, left Bethel ten days ago aboard a merchanter ship bound for the SSS-900-C. He did not arrive and the ship has not been heard from or found." Joseph rubbed his chin and looked at Bros. "I think you know why I asked to see you."

Joat shaped a silent whistle. No wonder Joe had seemed tense under his usual banter.

Bros nodded. 'The Kolnari," he said.

"You are CenSec's resident expert on ... them. And this will be an offworld affair. We . . . I am desperate for any help that you can offer. This is our prophet; and he is my brother-of-the-spirit, a bond closer than blood. They have taken him, I am sure. I must find him."

After a moment Bros leaned forward. "My superiors think I'm paranoid about the Kolnari. You understand me? They think that my information is unreliable, that every time a bandit hijacks a ship I see the Divine Seed. You take my advice, you're taking the risk that evaluation will rub off on you."

Joseph gave a bitter laugh and shook his head.

“Your superiors have not met the Kolnari. I have. To be paranoid about them is to be sane. I will trust your advice, Bros Sperin, for I know these devils. Advise me."

Cautiously, as though probing an open wound, Bros said, "There will be no ransom demand."

"I know it. If they have him, they will not so easily release him."

"I was aware of the kidnapping before you asked to see me, excellent sir," Bros said. "Simeon and ChannaHap reported that he hadn't arrived on the day he was overdue." Bros paused for a moment, gazing steadily at Joseph. "Just before I came over here a report reached me that the black box from the Sunwise had been recovered from a field of space debris. The box hasn't been evaluated yet, but the ship that found it reported signs indicating that the engines blew."

"I have no doubt that they did," Joseph said quietly.

"But I'd be surprised if that's all the box shows," Bros continued. "Even if there's not a Kolnari in sight, I believe that the Benisur was taken off that vessel either by them or for them. No question."

"We are agreed then." Joseph said, studying this legendary stranger. "Can you offer any advice? Anything at all."

"I hope so, excellent sir." Sperin paused. "I'm ashamed to admit it," he continued, "but we haven't caught up with all that many Kolnari since we routed them at the SSS-900-C and at Bethel. They went into hiding, and very effectively too. For quite a while we," he glanced at Joseph, "all of us, thought that perhaps Dr. Chaundra had wrought better than we had any right to hope and that they'd been exterminated by the disease he'd created.

"Then, gradually, but more and more over the last few years, pirate actions that fit the Kolnari m.o. began to crop up. Objects recorded as being taken in those specific raids suddenly were being offered for sale and we began to trace them back through a trail of legitimate dealers with flexible ethics to downright fences. Most of the time the trail led back to a Station called Rohan and a man named Nomik Ciety."

He turned to Joat. "This is where you come in," he said and smiled.

Oh really, she thought, gosh, wow, I feel so privileged. Get out of my chair, blast you! She nodded instead of speaking.

"Ciety is a notorious fence, a smuggler, a weapons broker. But we've never been able to touch him. Because Rohan, his base of operations, is a free-port, only nominally associated with Central Worlds, we have neither jurisdiction nor power there. In other words, as long as he keeps his nose clean on Rohan and makes his tax payments on time he can do anything, and I mean anything, that he wants to, there.

"We've sent people to Rohan to check him out, to look for Kolnari activity, to look for loot that we think the Kolnari might have taken. They've disappeared. Every one of them."

"And this is where I come in?" Joat asked, eyebrows raised.

Bros rubbed his hand across his upper lip.

"Exactly. I want you to go to Rohan and look around. I trust your capabilities and you're not known to be connected with Central Worlds Security so you should be in minimal danger. I repeat, I want you to look. Don't confront Ciety, don't troll for loot, don't try to find any Kolnari, just see what's there. You've been around, you'll know what to look for, what stories to listen to. If you see anything suspicious, that is, of a nature to help us with this problem, note it Do nothing else. Note it and get back to us."

"Sounds exciting." she said dryly.

Bros turned the pilot's chair until he was facing Joseph.

"Excellent sir, this man Ciety is also an information broker. It is possible that, for the right price, he might be willing to supply you with information about this kidnapping. All that I can guarantee you about him is treachery, so if you do approach him, watch your back and don't make payment final until you're well away from Rohan. The man is completely mercenary and if he discovers who you are he would willingly sell you to the Kolnari. It would be wise to make your approach through a third party; the place is rife with professional go-betweens, so finding someone shouldn't be a problem. Of course a major concern in that case would be that you're so obviously a Bethelite that, knowing your desperation for any information, they might inflate their prices at the sight of you and give you next to nothing at all. Or they may decide to mention your curiosity to Ciety, or someone else you don't want to take an interest in you.

"As Joat is already bound there . . ."

"I am?" Joat said in mock surprise and earned an arch look from the CenSec agent.

"I urge you, most strongly, excellent sir, to commission her to act for you while you stay clear of the place altogether." He looked over at Joat, his eyes narrowed. "Amending her mission to accommodate your needs might even improve her chances of finding out what CenSec wants to know. I think she's both clever and discreet enough to be able to handle such a commission. And if she arranges it through a go-between, or better yet, through several of them she might succeed in remaining completely anonymous. That's where I'd advise you to start. Joat can send your information back with her first report to CenSec and I'll relay it to you."

"Are you aware that I'm in the same room with you, Sperin?" Joat asked.

Bros gave her an exasperated look, then turned to Joseph and spread his hands. "That's all we can offer at the moment, excellent sir. I'm sorry." Bros dug into his pocket, pulled out a datahedron and handed it to Joat.

"This is Ciety's dossier. Read it when you can concentrate on it because it will erase itself as it's being read."

"Well that's useful," Joat muttered.

"We don't want him to know what we know about him, Joat. And since your security is barely worth mentioning you could hardly expect me to give you a permanent record." He stood. "Are there any questions?"

"Yup. One, when did I agree to do all this stuff? And two, how much are you offering to pay me for this?" Joat asked.

"Seventy-four hundred, plus reasonable expenses," Sperin said, ignoring her first question entirely.

"And to think I passed up a career in CenSec," Joat murmured sarcastically.

"Seventy-four hundred is considerably more than my salary for this year," Bros said. "Don't you want to help find the Benisur Amos? He is an old friend of your parents."

"You forgot to appeal to my patriotism," Joat said dryly.

"I may be a scoundrel, but I'm not down to my last resort quite yet."

"I was just hoping you could do a little better than that. After all, a trader who goes to Rohan is a little like a virgin taking tea in a whorehouse. It taints your reputation even if you haven't done any business." She smiled sweetly at him. "Expenses to include all fuel and repairs."

And Flegal, but I am going to repair the dickens out of this ship.

"All right," he said. "Point taken. On my authority, CenSec will pick up for any expenses and repairs this mission gives rise to." He held out his hand to her.

She raised her hand, but held it back.

"I wonder if you might be willing to offer some kind of a bonus, considering that this could be a dangerous mission and that I am, after all, a civilian. Nothing outrageous," she assured him, holding up a denying hand.

"You might arrange some trading concessions, for example. There's many a place I'd love to ship to but I can't afford the docking fees. What do you say, Bros? Think we can work something out?"

Bros put his hands on his hips and studied her through narrowed eyes.

"Where did you have in mind?"

"Senalgal?"

"Get real, Captain."

"The SSS-900-C?"

He raised his brows. "I would have thought Simeon . . ."

"I like to earn my way," she said sharply.

He nodded slowly. "I can fix it."

Joat held out her hand and he shook it, surprised at the strength of her grip.

"You can contact me at The Anvil," he said, "my cover name is Clal va Riguez." He nodded to Joseph, gave a half smile to Joat and was gone.

Joat turned on a monitor and they watched Sperin leave the Wyal and walk away without a backward glance.

"He told me he was known at The Anvil as Bros Sperin," she said resentfully.

"Wheels within wheels," Joseph murmured.

"Rand," she asked, "did he leave anything behind?"

"Yes, Joat. On the left arm of your chair, just where the seam is on the front of the arm."

Joat examined the area Rand had described. Nothing. She pulled out a scanner and flicked it; a framework extended, and she fitted it over her head. Joseph came to her side and pulled a huge, clumsy-looking optical from a pocket in his robe.

"Got it," she said.

"Here," Joseph grunted, his words crossing over hers. They smiled at each other.

He rose from his knees, bowing. "All yours, child."

"Child, hell." She pulled a toolkit from another pocket and opened it, twiddling her ringers. "Ta-dum."

It was about the width/of a human hair and no longer than the thickness of a fingernail; one end was razor-sharp, to make it easier to implant. Probably it was this large only to allow it to be manipulated easily.

"Hello, Bros!" Joat said brightly, smiling a toothy smile with the sticktight held at eye level. "Why do I get this feeling that not everything is As It Seems? Anyway, you seem to have forgotten something. I couldn't allow you to waste the taxpayers money like that. Tsk, tsk upon you."

She opened an envelope and dropped the sticktight into it. "Addressed to Clal va Riguez, The Anvil," she said. The envelope obligingly showed the name on its exterior, and she confirmed it with a pinch that sealed the container. "Deliver." She dropped it into a slot on the console.

"Oooh," Joat went on to Joseph. "Spy stuff. I wonder how much that little thingie is worth. I wonder how many more there are."

Joseph still had the optical to his eye; looking at the recording of the sticktight. Bethelite technology wasn't subtle, but it got the job done.

"Interesting. Passive sensor, I think—burst transmission when keyed."

"Confirmed," Rand said. "I was only aware of it because I saw Mr. Sperin install it. As for the rest of the ship, nothing seems abnormal, but I can make no guarantees. Mr. Sperin seems a devious man, and we've no idea how long he was actually aboard before he chose to make his presence known."

"About that," Joat interrupted. "Why didn't you tell me he was onboard?"

"The first I knew of it was when he appeared on the bridge, Joat."

"But how could he do that?" she demanded.

"I suppose that CenSec has been extrapolating from your design," Rand said, "and they've come up with a superior version."

Joat bristled and her eyes sparked with fury. "Not for long, they haven't," she growled.

"In any event," Rand continued, "if he's left something behind I can't find it until it's contacted by an external signal."

"Don't worry about it, Rand. It's not your fault." If anything, she thought, it's mine for becoming so complacent. Or so honest. Joat shrugged. "I think it's safe to assume he'd leave his best stuff on the bridge. That's where we'll be most of the time, after all." ' She picked up the bottle of Arrack and freshened both of their drinks.

"Disappointed?" she asked.

Joseph grimaced slightly.

"I am more annoyed than disappointed. Why I do not know. I certainly did not expect Central Worlds to charge to the rescue with banners flying. But I expected . . ."

"More than to be told to go home and wait for word from us big important people?"

"Yes!" he said firmly.

"You expected to be treated as a professional equal who doesn't need obvious instructions on how to behave in a hostile port?"

"Yes!"

"More importantly, you were hoping to receive some offer of backup from Central Worlds if you do find out who has Amos and where they've taken him."

Joseph tossed back the rest of the Arrack in his glass and looked at her.

"Without the aid of the Central Worlds Navy there would be little that we could do. If they are unwilling

to help us, or if they delay, then my brother will die." He laughed in self mockery and rubbed a hand across his eyes. "Ah, Joat, I had hoped for hope."

Joat grinned at him. "All that regular living has made you soft, Joe. You don't need hope, you need luck . . ."

". . . and you make your own luck!" they recited together, they clicked glasses and laughed.

She folded her arms and leaned her hip against her main console. Her eyes went over the readouts, registering automatically without interrupting the flow of thought.

"We're fueled, we're set for supplies; as soon as my crew gets back we can cast off. So if you've got gear you'd better go and fetch it now."

Joseph grinned wickedly at her and indicated the small bag at his feet. "That is all that I have, Joat But I must say that I do not think Mr. Sperin would approve of this invitation. I do not believe that he wished me to go to Rohan."

"Hunh, by the time he was finished talking I wasn't sure he wanted me to go! Pushy osco, ain't he?"

"Perhaps he wanted to go himself," offered Rand. "He had the overtones, if I may say so, of a man stretching his instructions to the limit."

Joat and Joseph exchanged glances.

"Y'know Rand, I believe you've hit the nail on the head," Joat murmured.

With a soft hiss of breath Amos completed the final movement of the seven hundred and fifty separate steps of the Sword Dance of Natham. He stood upright, panting slightly, sweat running freely down his bare, muscled sides.

The dance helped to center him, to stave off rage and panic, as well as wearing him out so that he could sleep. He had just repeated it twice in succession, once slowly, once very fast.

Now he wished that he could be clean. But the Kolnari brig did not include such amenities as a shower. There was a small sink, however and he went over to it intending to do the best he could.

The cell was small, perhaps two meters by three with double-decker bunks that folded down from the wall, the sink and a commode for furnishings. The walls, ceiling, and floor were of cold, white enameled metal and the light never went out.

The food was neither good nor bad, but bland, soldier's rations, in reasonable quantity, delivered at unpredictable intervals.

Were he a man who could find no comfort in his God, Amos knew that he would be howling and beating on the door by now. He smiled grimly. The Kolnari couldn't know that a severe religious retreat could be very like this. There would be better facilities for cleaning oneself, and books, and the light would be under his control, but otherwise there were strong similarities. With the obvious exception, of course, that he could end a religious retreat at will. Assuming that God willed it so.

He sighed and turned on the faucet. No water came.

How petty, he thought, Belazir must be finding me boring.

He sat on his bunk and turned his palms upward to begin meditating on the devotions of the prophets. That would fill his time both pleasantly and well, since there were over eight thousand of them.

The hatch swung open and two figures in black space armor violently flung Captain Sung into the room. Amos leapt to his feet and caught the older man before he could crash to the floor. By the time he had the Captain righted on his feet the cell was sealed once more.

"Captain," Amos said in astonishment. "What of Soamosa? Have you seen her, have they told you anything?"

The Captain's face was badly bruised and he was shaking with reaction.

"I thought they were gonna space me," he said and shuddered. "I knew they couldn't get a ransom for me, they already took everything I ever had. I thought they were going to vent me with the rest of the garbage."

Amos put an arm around the older man and guided him to the bunk.

"I would give you water if I could," he said, "but they have turned it off." He paused for a moment. "Captain," he said softly and waited until the other man looked at him. "Soamosa, do you know anything about her?"

The Captain shook his head regretfully. "No, nothing. I haven't seen her since we were split up, and they don't talk to me." He raised a shaking hand to brush back his short hair. "I'm sorry."

"I did not expect that you would know, I only hoped that they might have become careless and allowed you to see something. It is no matter."

"How long have we been here?" Sung asked.

"I do not know. I have slept four times, and I have been fed eight. But what relation that might have to real time I could not begin to guess. What is your estimation?"

Sung shook his head, his face looking infinitely sad.

"I don't know," he said, "I just don't know."

"Rest," Amos said gently and placed his hand against the Captains shoulder, urging him to lie down. He grinned ruefully. "We shall have a wealth of time to talk later. Put your head down for a while."

Sung nodded tiredly and lay flat, his eyes closed before his head touched the pillow.

Amos sat on the floor in a lotus position. Before resuming his meditations he offered a brief prayer of thanks for the gift of a companion to relieve the silence of his imprisonment.

Several hours later Sung stirred and woke. He turned to Amos and stared at him in puzzlement.

"Who the hell are you?' he asked.

"What?"

"Who the hell are you? What are you doing in here?"

"Captain, what are you talking about?" Amos studied the Captain's irate face with astonishment. "I am Amos ben Sierra Nueva, a passenger of yours . . ."

"Passengers aren't allowed in the captain's quarters! What are you doing here?"

Amos licked his dry lips, uncertain how one answered a man apparently losing his mind and growing more angry by the minute.

"Captain Sung," he held out a placating hand, "we are not on your ship, we have been thrown into the brig of a Kolnari pirate. Don't you remember?"

The Captain's eyes widened, a look of fear shuddered across his face to be replaced by confusion.

"What did you say my name was?"

"You are Captain Josiah Sung, of the merchanter ship Sunwise."

'The Sunwise," Sung reached out and gripped Amos's hand desperately, "I remember her. She's my ship, the Sunwise, I know her. You see? I'm all right."

"Yes, of course you are, Captain. It was only a moments confusion. You woke from a deep sleep to find yourself in a new place, it is not uncommon to be disoriented under such conditions. All is well." Amos gave the Captains hand a squeeze and smiled encouragingly at him.

Sung raised his tear-slicked face to glare at Amos.

"Let go of my hand you bastard! How the hell did you get in here?"

Amos felt his heart pounding in the cage of his ribs, more strongly than it had when he pushed his body to its limits.

"I'm the Captain dammit! I don't entertain the passengers. You got that? Get out of here!" Sung pointed to the hatch and then blinked. With a gasp he turned to look at Amos. "What's happening to me? What have they done?"

Amos shook his head, equally horrified. The bruise on the Captain's face was proof of a head wound, but would such a wound have an effect like this? Had the Captain been poisoned? Was he being shown the effects before they did the same to him? It would be like Belazir to torture him so, the Kolnari idea of subtlety.

Suddenly Belazir stood before them. The edges of his image bore a soft white fuzz for a moment, then the holo snapped into clear focus.

A white silken robe emphasized the inhuman blackness of his still-magnificent body. A feathered clip held back his brittle white hair.

"Good morning Simeon Amos, or good evening, whichever you have decided it must be. How are you getting on down here?"

"Not well, Master and God. The Captain is not himself." Amos's eyes dared to demand answers, but he would not give Belazir the pleasure of hearing him ask for them.

"Is he not?" Belazir said with amusement. 'Then who is he? Captain Sung, who do you think you are?"

"What . . . what do you mean?"

"Who are you?" Belazir asked.

A look of blank astonishment crossed Sung s face and he raised his hands helplessly.

"I don't know," he said, his voice tight with horror. "I don't remember." Tears gathered in his eyes and he struggled visibly not to blink and send them rolling down his cheeks. "I don't remember."

Amos glared at the Kolnari, letting his face show contempt. He spat at the feet of the image.

Belazir quirked a smile at him. "You offer little sport, scumvermin; you tell me everything that I want to know without my even asking. Why should I tell you anything?"

"You knew before you did this that I would despise you for it. Master and God. Why you even bothered to show up I cannot imagine."

"Is this wise, scumvermin, to bait a man who holds your lives in his fist? I am sure that your friend Channahap would advise you otherwise." He folded his massive arms across his chest and regarded Amos with amusement. "It may be that I have information that you might wish to have. If you ask me very politely, I might unbend sufficiently to enlighten you."

Amos's lips quivered with rage, but his need to know the fate of his young cousin won out over his pride and his hatred.

"I beg your pardon," he said formally. "Master and God."

Belazir raised an eyebrow. "I will assume that was a request for knowledge. I know that you wish for information about your young cousin. But I will instead unfold a larger plan before you. One that touches the fate of all your people." He paused, smiling, to observe the effect this pronouncement was having on Amos. "You can see that the Captain here is not behaving normally, can you not?"

"Of course I can," Amos said through gritted teeth. "Master and God."

"You are thinking that we have beaten him into this condition, or that we have poisoned him."

Amos nodded.

Belazir's face suddenly seemed weary. He shrugged and half-turned away.

"In fact he has been overcome by a contagious, progressive disease that attacks the memory center of

the brain. You are a carrier of this disease, Simeon Amos, but we have made sure that you are completely immune to it. You have seen how rapidly it works, how devastating it is."

Belazirs golden eyes narrowed. "We Kolnari have gained great respect for such weapons. You and the rest of the scumvermin on that accursed station taught us a singular lesson about biological weaponry. Now we of Kolnar shall return the favor.

"You will be given a drug that will prevent you from moving or speaking and then you will be returned to your people."

Amos rose from the bunk, to confront Belazir on his feet.

"We are not stupid, Belazir. My people will know that something is wrong. Why else would you return me?"

"Oh, but they will have to fight to recover you. It will all be very convincing, I assure you. A raging chase through the skies of Bethel. But they will win, for yours is a valiant people. And their reward shall be to become like the Captain. We will leave him here with you so that you can fully appreciate what your return to the bosom of your people will mean to them."

As Amos rushed forward the grinning image of Belazir blinked out and he crashed into the wall instead. He slid down until he was sitting on the floor, and then he looked up to meet Captain Sung's gaze.

"Who are you?" the man asked. "Who . . ."

CHAPTER FOUR

Joat stared moodily at the screen. It listed the latest Standard Commercial Report listing of cargoes in demand at Rohan Station, together with charter listings and container requests from New Destinies. Item: thruster units. Officially, Rohan didn't have shipyards. Item: power plant spares. From the specs, there were some awfully fast merchantmen operating out of Rohan—merchantmen who were profligate enough to burn out their overpowered drive units with some regularity. The sort of maneuver you needed to transit an atmosphere at high speed, or wrench another ship out of FTL transit.

'There are some things I just won't do," she muttered.

Running that sort of cargo into a pesthole like Rohan was one of those things. Fuel, maybe. Foodstuffs, medical supplies, sure—if they went into a pirates sickbay or galley, that wasn't her affair. But no fardling way was she going to run drive coils or fire-control electronics. Not to Rohan.

"Joat, will you be advised by me?"

Lessee. I could offer to take those fifteen containers of pharmaceuticals at, say, three percent, then—

Joat glanced up from the cargo manifest she was studying to look at Joseph. His face was solemn and his manner formal. She raised her brows.

"I'm always willing to listen to advice from people I respect, Joe. What's on your mind?"

"I keep thinking of something you said to Bros Sperin. That going to Rohan was to a trader the equivalent of a virgin entering a whorehouse. It is a good analogy, Joat, and it troubles me."

Joat leaned back in her chair, eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

"Go on," she said.

"It is not simply your reputation with Central Worlds that concerns me. You are known as a captain who keeps her hands clean. Will they not wonder why you have come to them? As well, your association with the SSS-900-C is widely known. As the adopted daughter of a shell-person you became quite famous for a while. To those guilty of aiding the Kolnari your name will surely set off a train of associations which could result in considerable danger for you."

She folded her hands on her stomach and nodded slowly.

"You're right. I will need a reason for going there that's completely dissociated from Amos or the Kolnari. You know, I have this sneaking suspicion that Mr. Sperin wanted me to be under suspicion. So that it would be easier for someone else—say, Bros Sperin—to slip in himself while everyone worried about me. Hmmm."

"Perhaps if you were to take on smuggled goods," Joseph suggested tentatively. "New Destinies has a reputation for looking the other way in such matters, so having this as your last port of call would lend credibility."

"I'd need to justify that," Joat said thoughtfully. "I'm the first to admit that I bend the rules till they scream for mercy, but seriously criminal behavior is something I've managed to avoid so far."

She tapped her fingertips together and stared into space for a moment. Then she smiled.

"Rand," she asked, "do we have a recording of that little walk I took earlier?'

"Yes Joat I saw no reason not to make one."

"Can you adjust it to make it look as though it had been recorded by someone else?"

"I can."

"Do it. Then transmit it anonymously to Station Security." She winked at Joseph. "I took an unauthorized space walk and entered the station illegally. They'll hit us with a wonking great fine and I can use that as an excuse for needing fast and dirty credits." She grimaced. "It may take us there round about, but I think the added safety margin should be worth a small delay."

"But Joat, the fine will be real," Joseph objected. Frowning he asked, "What if you cannot pay it?"

"No problem." Joat grinned at him. "CenSec will pay—at least, I think I can thumbscrew any reasonable amount out of them. We'll just put it under expenses. Might come to four, five thousand credits; even ten thousand. Enough to make the treasurer wince. Can't be much more than that."

Joseph laughed. Bethelites tended to be straightlaced, but Joseph ben Said had the wholehearted love of a well-thought-out swindle natural to a Keriss wharf rat. This would not only make CenSec cough up the money, but a certain Bros Sperin would have to justify the expense.

"You are wicked! You have always been wicked. Why did I think you had outgrown it?"

"Wishful thinking?" Joat asked, blinking innocent blue eyes.

A good notion, Sperin thought as he watched the clip of Joat breaking into the station. Getting herself into trouble with station security should give her greater credibility.

He'd wondered how she managed to avoid the man they'd had waiting for her. He's not the best that ever was, but he's not blind either. Bros shook his head and smiled slightly.

Now how can I benefit from this situation? Sperin rubbed his upper lip thoughtfully. The little captain had been talking about ditching her career as a courier, not something CenSec would like to happen. She's smart and she's reliable. It was amazing how rare those qualities were.

Joat hadn't been invited to join CenSec because she was too independent, too unpredictable. But it had turned out that in every way that it counted she was a gem. Be nice to have her beholden to us, Sperin mused. She's the type that pays her debts.

He'd been given a name in the Bureau of Fines and Levies to contact if need arose. Bros rubbed his palms together. I believe I feel a need.

"Roses sweet and tender she has twined in her

hair,

and the scent of spring and roses is with her

everywhere."

Joat yawned and half-groaned as the baritone voice boomed through the sound system.

"I take it Alvec is back," she said.

"Yes, Joat," Rand said.

She dumped a packet of sweetener into the coffee— she could afford real sugar now, but preferred the more familiar taste—and said: "On display."

The viewscreen over the galley's preserver unit came live, showing a holo of the deck outside the Wyal's berth. Alvec Dia was there, engaged in an enthusiastic good-bye kiss with a woman of about his own age and poundage; she had a spectacular head of red hair, and was clutching a dozen long-stemmed roses in her free hand. Or grinding them into Alvec's back, at times.

"Alvec?" Joseph asked from the other side of the galley.

He slid several eggs off the frictionless surface of the heater and onto a plate.

"Ahhh, Brunoki sausage. Almost as good at the morning meal as toasted sand rats. Alvec is the crewman of whom you spoke?"

Joat broke a yoke with a strip of toast. 'Tup. And this happens at every dock. Well, nearly every dock. You don't really like sand rats, do you?"

"They are a traditional delicacy."

"Screen off. This is depressing."

"Only because you are lonely," Joseph said slyly. "As my second wife, you—"

"Do you really want to die, Joe?"

Alvec checked for a moment as he came through the galley door.

"You remember Joe?"

"Sure," he said easily, nodding at the Bethelite. They had met once before, briefly.

His expression showed that he also remembered Josephs allergy to questions. The craggy-faced spacer's expression went carefully bland as he pulled a container of coffee out of the cupboard, broke the seal and settled across the tiny table from Joat.

"Ah, she's beautiful, boss," he told them. "Sweetest gal you'd ever want to meet."

Joat and Joseph exchanged a look.

"He's always hike this after he's been on leave," Joat explained.

Joseph nodded, "Of course, quite understandable."

Joat cocked her head at her crew, her brows raised.

"Um, Al. Would you like to pursue your acquaintance with this lady while Joe and I take a brief jaunt elsewhere?"

Alvec looked from Joat to Joseph suspiciously.

"Not especially. I mean, yeah, I want to pursue her acquaintance, she's beautiful, but not at the expense of my job."

'Your job is safe, Al. Joe's just visiting, he's got a wife and kids dirtside on Bethel. We've just got this thing we've got to do. And you deserve a vacation, you haven't had one in ages."

Alvec studied his employer, her little half smile, the raised brows, the wide innocent eyes.

"Now you've got me worried, Captain," he complained. "When you look this reasonable, you're usually up to something. I'll think about it." Alvec allowed his manner to convey his deep suspicion.

The com chimed. "Merchant Ship Wyal, Captain Joat Simeon speaking," Joat answered.

"Good morning, Captain Simeon. My name is Graf Dyson." The man smiled grimly. "Although I understand you know my name."

Oh-oh. Graf Dyson. I claimed to be a very good friend of Graf Dyson. Influential people tended to disapprove when you took their names in vain. She'd intended to be far away by the time Mr. Dyson got wind of how she'd used his influence without his permission. Oh, well, I never expected to want to get fined.

The man on the screen was dark haired, middle-aged and heavy featured. Looks honest, Joat thought. That was a bad sign. Conmen and sharps usually did.

"I am employed by the Bureau of Fines and Levies, as I believe you already know." He paused to let that sink in before continuing: "And I'm contacting you in regard to a matter that has been brought to the attention of Station Security and through them to my bureau."

"Mmmm?" Joat murmured cautiously, setting her coffee aside.

"A recording was anonymously sent to Security of an unauthorized space walk and illegal entry into the station through an emergency repair hatch by someone from the Wyal. We have reason to believe that the person shown on the recording might be you."

There was something about the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes that unnerved her. Me and my bright ideas. Using Dyson's name had been a good idea. Making the illegal entry had been a good idea. Tricking the New Destinies into giving her a cover story by fining her had been a good idea.

But when you added them all up, they didn't come to a good idea. This is what Channa used to mean by keeping the big picture in mind, Joat thought. For a moment she wished poignantly that Channa was there with her, someone older and wiser to lean on. . . .

Fardling void with that, she thought stubbornly. I'm twenty-three. And even when I was twelve, I could look after myself.

"That's completely ridiculous!" she said briskly. "What possible reason could I have for doing such a thing?"

Joat stared back at Dyson with an expression of injured disbelief that had baffled even experienced child-welfare workers in its time.

'Your ship was under observation yesterday by Station Security. It's assumed that you became aware of being under surveillance and chose to avoid it by taking this round-about method of entering the station."

"Wait a minute," she said, hunching forward in her seat. "I was under surveillance? What for?"

"Why you were being watched is irrelevant, Ms. Simeon. What you chose to do about it is."

Oh it's Ms. now is it, you clabber-faced oaf! What happened to Captain Simeon?

"I think it's very relevant," she said aloud. "I demand to know why you were spying on me!"

"I'll have Station Security send you a report," Dyson said through bared teeth. "However, in regard to the matter in hand . . ."

"I did not take any unauthorized space walk!"

"Then how do you explain that you were not seen leaving your ship, but were observed returning?"

"Maybe I can walk through walls."

"Heh, heh. How very clever. And how do you explain being found outside the very lock shown in the recording, with your suit in your arms?"

"I was taking my suit to get the seals checked."

"And being in the corridor outside the lock?"

"I got lost."

"The Bureau finds it reasonable to fine you for this incident. And as you aren't a station resident, I have plenary authority. Unauthorized breaches of hull security are a serious matter."

They were. Spacers took pressure integrity even more seriously than Bethelites took fresh water. Joat felt a small twinge of guilt; she hadn't really endangered the Station's atmosphere . . . but if it ever got to a jury, they wouldn't be amused. At all.

Joat smacked both palms on the sides of the console and leaned forward menacingly.

"I protest!"

Dyson regarded her coolly. "That is certainly your right, Ms. Simeon. New Destinies is well supplied with lawyers who are specialists in dealing with the Bureau. I suggest that you avail yourself of their services, if you feel you can afford it—after paying the fine, that is. In the meantime, the fine will be registered against your ship and will be due in forty days."

Joat glared. "What's the fine?" she growled.

"Thirty thousand credits."

Joat's eyes snapped wide. Alvec gasped, and Joseph grunted in the background like a man belly-punched.

"You're crazy! No way can you justify a fine like that!"

"Shall we double it?" The man's features grinned like a shark for an instant, then went friendly-bland again.

She gave a shaky little laugh.

"What is this? Some kind of shake-down? You can't possibly hope to get away with this."

"Double it again. It's you that's trying to get away with something, Ms. Simeon. I'm simply doing my job and I'm fairly confident that I can get away with that. You now owe New Destinies one hundred and twenty thousand credits. I think you should stop talking before you owe us the value of the station itself. Don't you?"

Joat closed her mouth with an effort. This had gotten way out of hand. She sat still for a moment, feeling pale and shaky. What if CenSec refused to answer for this debt? She could lose her ship. They would refuse to pay it. Ten thousand she could have gotten out of them via Bros, and enjoyed him squirming on the Treasury's pin. A hundred and twenty thousand they'd refuse out of hand.

What can I do? Sue Central Worlds Security?

"Now you mentioned protesting the fine, didn't you?" Dyson asked pleasantly.

Joat nodded vigorously.

"Well, unfortunately the only date we have open for a hearing is sixty days from now. Also in that case we'd have to impound your ship. And since the fine is due in forty days, well, that would mean that your ship would probably already have been auctioned off by the time your case came up. Do you want to think about it? You have five days to protest the fine." He gazed at her blandly.

"Yes," she said. She found it hard to talk. "I ... I could lose my ship?"

"Yesss, you certainly could. In fact, I'd be extremely surprised if you didn't." Dyson stared out of the screen

at her, his hands folded neatly before him. He smiled again, the same friendly, honest-looking smile.

She thought of her remaining mortgage.

I'll be ruined, she thought desperately. I'll be a slave to the bank, working off a debt on something I don't even own. She pictured years of work under someone else's command with nothing to show for it but a slowly diminishing debt.

"You should have thought of that before you went out your hatch, Ms. Simeon," Dyson said, as he disconnected the automatic recording device.

"And before you opened your big mouth. And claimed an acquaintance you didn't have!" He cut the transmission with a decisive snap.

Dyson sat back, a satisfied sneer on his face. I enjoyed that! he thought. It wasn't every day that you got your own back with the blessings of Central Worlds Security.

He grinned as he recalled the look of sick horror on her pretty face. It's moments like these that make life worthwhile, Dyson mused.

The fine wouldn't stick, of course. In fact he wasn't even supposed to register more than a minimal fine, Ah, but what if the good Captain checks? he wondered as he entered the astronomical fine. I can always erase it later. He sat back again. If they tell me to.

He chuckled. Life is good!

Joat just stared at the blank screen for a moment, frozen in shock. "Ooops," she said.

Alvec cleared his throat. "I know what ooops means," he said. "It means, I screwed the pooch. Boss, you got something you wanna tell me?"

Joat opened her mouth, and then looked over at Joseph. He lifted his brows, and she nodded.

"Captain Simeon-Hap has arranged to visit Station Rohan," he began. "On urgent business."

Alvec choked on a mouthful of coffee. "That jackals nest?"

Joseph nodded. "Exactly, my friend. A normal trading and freight-charter trip would appear suspicious; honest traders try to avoid Rohan. So, she—we—needed a plausible reason to take high-freight but, shall we say, questionable cargo on a run to a ... questionable location."

"Jeeeze, Boss, how do you get into these things?" He shook his head in wonder. "I've never heard of a fine like that for such a piddly little infraction."

"Some piddly little bureaucrat in Health and Immigration named Dilton tried to shake me down when we came in, and I dropped Graf Dyson's name, pretended that I was a friend of his. Evidently Dilton checked up on it and now Dysons leaning on me."

"How can this guy get away with that?"

"In this case, Alvec, it's timing," Rand said. "Before a hearing there is no opportunity to work off the debt, after the ship is taken, Joat will have neither the leisure nor the credits to file suit."

"And," Joseph put in, "our business is too urgent to delay. We cannot afford to tie ourselves up in a bureaucratic . . . process," he finished for want of a better word. He had one actually, but he would not utter it in front of Joat.

"I didn't think that it would be wise to claim acquaintance with him, Joat," Rand scolded. "Why did you risk it?"

"At the time," she said tiredly, "I never expected a petty crook to be so smart ... or so efficiently vindictive."

"You didn't study the matter. You acted impulsively."

"Rand," she said, "shut up or I'll punch your lights out."

"1 don't like the smuggling thing, Boss," Alvec said. "It's like a drug for some people. They get started for the profit and they get hooked on the excitement." He shook his head.

"I think I've got enough excitement right now to supply me for a lifetime, Al. And now I actually need the damn credits. No way CenSec is gonna spring for a hundred and twenty thousand. You could buy a corvette for that, used."

She brushed her hair back off her face and then flung herself back in her chair, gripping the armrests until her fingers turned white. "I'm gonna need something good," she said grimly.

"Joat, my friend, calm yourself," Joseph said. "Certainly the outrageous size of this fine will ensure that your troubles become known quickly. We will hardly need to exert ourselves to make our desperation convincing. Indeed, rather than having to seek someone out, they may approach you. And," he held up one finger, "Central Worlds has enough influence and authority to get this cruel fine reduced to something reasonable. Send a message to Mr. Sperin, and doubtless he will see to it."

"You're probably right, Joe." She gave him a weak smile and turned to Alvec: "Feel up to a pub crawl? Best way I know of making yourself available for an approach."

"Let me ask Rose where would be a good place to start," Alvec offered. "She might know some places."

"Where did you meet her?" Joat asked.

"Ah ..." Alvec flushed. "The Station personals column."

"Rimrunners," Rose said. "Rimrunners would be a good place, up near the North Quadrant. But any bar in the same general neighborhood will probably do. They're all crooked as a Phelobite's elbow up there."

Joat studied the bed-sitting room behind Rose. It was fairly large for a Stationer; Rose was evidently a mid-level tech in a gas-refining outfit, and spent a fair amount of time out-of-habitat. The wall behind her was a slightly blurry holo taken over the flared bows of a scoopship, with the gas-giant filling the entire forward quadrant; Looking at it made Joat's piloting reflexes scream vector up! until she had to glance away.

"You need some help on this, honey?" Rose asked Alvec.

He shook his head. "Ship's business, darlin'. But thanks." He blew her a kiss and turned off the view-screen.

Maybe we should take her up on that, Joat thought. From the look of her, she'd be a good friend to have behind you in a fight.

No. That wouldn't be fair. Rose hadn't gotten them into this mess. Speaking of fair . . .

"Maybe you should take Rose out to dinner while Joe and I scope out Rimrunners," she said hopefully. "It's not like anything grudly is going to come down."

Alvec stood, stretched on to his toes and came down in a posture of relaxed alertness.

"You don't know nothin' about this stuff, Boss."

"And you do?"

Alvec looked down at his feet. "Yeah, some."

Joat studied him. Alvec had a mysterious past. He didn't talk about it and she paid him the courtesy of not asking, appreciating the fact that he returned the favor.

So we both have things we're happier not talking about, she thought. That might be a bit of a handicap now; they were probably both assuming a degree of naivete in the other that wasn't justified. I'd better take him at his word.

She'd always had the feeling that at one time he might have been master of his own ship. His competence, his knowledge and the high rank of many of his friends argued for the idea. But whatever happened had left him quite content to be Joat's crew.

She shrugged.

"Yeah, well, I'm not doing so well on my own, so maybe you'd better come along. Between you, you and Joe should be able to keep me from making things worse."

'Your faith alarms me, my friend," Joseph said with a laugh. "But I shall do my best to earn it."

Alvec gave Joseph a long, considering look.

Joat laughed. The two men looked at her. "We're all of us bundles of surprises, aren't we?" she said, and linked her arms through theirs. "Let's get going."

How did they do it? Joat wondered. How did they manage to make a place that was built at the same time as everything else on this station look this dilapidated?

North Quarter was reasonable enough on its outskirts, comfortable low- to middle-income housing and the modest shops that catered to that group. It was the people that signaled the change as much as anything else. As you got closer to the unspun docking sections the clothes got plainer and grubbier, or more spectacularly flashy. Joat found her fingers curling instinctively around the hilt of her vibroknife where it was tucked into its charging sheath in the right sleeve of her overalls. It was a small movement, nearly undetectable . . . but half the people on the corridor moved a little farther aside when she did it. Which said something about their perceptions, even now in night-cycle, when the overhead ambients were turned down to let the shopfront glowers and holos shine by contrast.

This is the sort of place Uncle used to stop. Before he'd lost her in a card game when she was about seven. She felt her shoulders hunch, her face tighten. Her body remembered those years; the feral child was still there, hiding inside the skin of the civilized young woman.

The professionals were out, too. Down here they didn't just saunter; you got detailed propositions. Complete with anatomical details so lurid that she blinked.

"What you said about my succumbing to soft living would seem to be true, Joat," Joseph whispered in her ear. "I, who grew up on the docks of Keriss, find myself embarrassed!"

Joat grinned at him. "At least you don't smell of cop."

The Bethelite nodded. "In Keriss too we could always smell a thief-taker," he said. "Still, I remember a little more discretion from the Daughters of Joy."

"Don't be embarrassed," she said. "This bunch're way saltier than average. They're beginning to get to me too."

Alvec leered. "Y'oughta be storing this stuff up for use on Rohan. New Destinies is a deacons convention next to that."

"Do you speak as one who knows?" Joseph asked, his voice cool. Alvec bristled.

'Tell me something," Joat said. "Why is it that men— even smart ones—are dumb as iridium ingots while they're settling who's big bull baboon?"

Alvec snorted. Joseph raised his eyebrows—a habit he'd picked up from Amos—and chuckled. "Women are more subtle about it," he admitted. "I will try not to leap, gibber, or scratch my armpits too often in your presence, saiyda."

The Rimrunner was an Earth-style bar with furniture that only accommodated the humanoid form. The windows were one-way, opaque on the outside, with colorful advertisements for liquor flashing across the dirty black surface. Inside they gave a clear, if not clean, view of the street.

They made their way to an empty table, covertly studying the other patrons, who studied them in turn. Some of the men and women sitting at the tables or standing at the bar were sleazy-gaudy like most of the crowd outside; there were a few in conservative business jumpsuits, a few too well dressed, and a number in spacer's coveralls. Those looked neater. You couldn't be messy on a vehicle with boost, not really. Not if you wanted to live.

A bored and blowzy waitress slouched over and took their order. When she'd returned with their drinks and departed with an air of never planning to return, they sat quietly and sipped grimly for awhile. Conversation had died when they walked in, and was slow to revive. Most eyes were on the holo over the bar—an act showing surprising gymnastic skill, among other things— with occasional darts in their direction.

Finally, Joat leaned towards her crew and murmured: "So, Al, is there something we do? Talk to the bartender, put a note on the bulletin board, walk around shouting we want to smuggle, or what?"

"Someone'll come over," he murmured. 'They're just checkin' us out."

They sat a little longer and Joat began to drum her fingers on the table. Two of them had sticky ends from a film of something on the surface.

"That's it," she said finally, putting her hands flat on the tabletop to push herself to her feet. "I don't really want to do this anyway—"

A pale, thin-faced man with dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard was suddenly at her elbow. He wore a black jumpsuit with flared sleeves, which might be hiding anything.

"You're, uh, Captain Simeon-Hap, aren't you?" he asked quietly.

Three pairs of eyes bored into the stranger as he reversed the empty chair at their table and laid an open messager on the surface, sitting with his arms resting on the chairback.

"Mind if I join you?" he asked.

Joat shook her head. "You already have," she pointed out.

"Word is you've fallen on interesting times," he said, and smiled. Like the rest of him, the smile was thin and vicious-looking. "As in the curse."

She raised her brows. "Word gets around fast."

"Is it true?"

She sighed. "Yeah. It's true." She smiled in her turn, tight and controlled and dangerous. "We're gonna drink the money we have left."

Something invisible relaxed in the thin man's posture. "No need. Let me buy you a round." He looked pointedly at Joseph and Alvec. "Would you guys mind placing the order? Lisha will bring ours over to us, but you'll probably prefer to drink yours at the bar."

They looked at Joat, and rose at her nod. Joat could sense their reluctance, but they were both too experienced to queer her pitch. Nobody would want to book space with a captain who couldn't command her crew; particularly not people who wanted to be sure that their cargo got to its destination without inspection.

When Al and Joseph reached the bar they leaned against it, putting their weight on their elbows as if they were completing a journey of a thousand miles and their feet hurt.

"What'll it be, gents?"

"Arrack?" Joseph asked hopefully.

The bartender shook his head. "We got gin, we got whisky, we got beer . . ."

"Earth beer?" Alvec asked straightening.

"Four kinds," the bartender named them.

Alvec slapped Joseph's arm with the back of his hand.

"Ya gotta try this stuff," he said. "You're gonna love it!"

Joseph looked skeptical but nodded.

'Two," he said. He looked briefly in Joat's direction.

"Don't worry," Alvec said. "It's nothin' she can't handle."

Joseph sighed. "Yes, no doubt you are right. Still. . ." He shook his head. Then he looked around, as though really noticing the bar for the first time.

"It is amazing," he said, "Except for the signs, this tavern could be on Bethel. It is like any number of places on the docks where I grew up."

"Yeah," Alvec sighed nostalgically. "Me too. I think they invented a place like this back on Earth, and they've been shippin' them out wholesale from the same factory ever since."

"C.O.D.?" Joat asked in disbelief. "You expect me to ship this cash on delivery?"

"Captain, smuggling is like any other business. There has to be an element of trust or nothing can happen." He smiled his thin smile again, showing a sliver of teeth. "For example, we're trusting you not to fly off somewhere and sell the cargo."

You're trusting that I know what happens to people who try to stiff the Organization, she thought. The criminal equivalent of the Better Business Bureau wasn't a formal league, but it did have a strong, working joint policy on welchers.

"Nobody ships interstellar C.O.D.," she said firmly. "At the very least I'll need credits up front that will pay the expense of the trip. I'm not interested in getting to Schwartztarr and finding out that this has been a joke."

He pursed his lips. "So, what would that come to?"

"Two thousand," she said firmly.

He raised his brows and laughed faintly.

"You'd better check your engines, Captain. Your fuel consumption is way off the mark."

"I'm going to have to bribe my way off this station. I consider that a legitimate," she smiled briefly, "expense of the trip."

"They're supposed to let you continue to operate your business so you can pay your fine."

"Yeah, and they're not supposed to fine me the value of my ship for a misdemeanor, too. Two thousand up front, my man; twenty-five thousand on delivery. I won't even consider it without."

Joseph raised his brimming stein to his nose and sniffed dubiously.

"It smells like meat," he said.

"Meat!" Alvec sniffed his. "Mine's okay. Whaddaya mean, it smells like meat?"

"To me," Joseph explained, "this 'beer' smells like raw meat."

Alvec looked at him.

"Yeah, well," he grinned, "I can't wait to have a steak on your world."

Joseph took a tentative sip and smiled.

"You shall have one of the best when you visit my rancho," he promised, "if you will bring the beer."

He was raising his still brimming stein to touch glasses with Alvec when a shabby fellow in a once-yellow ship suit elbowed him aside; beer slopped over Joseph's sleeve and down the front of his robe. He set the remainder down and wiped the fabric with a napkin. The spacer ignored him . . . until he poked a rigid finger into the man's shoulder.

"That," he said, "was clumsy."

The spacer turned to him; when he spoke it was with a strong accent, wheezing and sharp. "Donchu touch me you bastard son of a whore!"

Ooops. Alvec thought. Joat had told him a little about Bethel, and he'd accessed more from the Wyal's database. That was not a good thing to say to a Bethelite; especially in Josephs case, because it might well be literally true.

The bearded man handed Joat a credit chip and a blue datahedron.

"The information is protected by a very nasty virus, so I warn you, don't try to access it or you may find yourself drifting in hyper-space until you become a ghost story."

She smiled. "Smuggling is like any other business, there has to be an element of trust or nothing can happen."

He leaned his head to one side in acknowledgment, then looked over sharply to the bar.

Thwuck.

She had never seen Joseph look quite like that. His face was pale, with paler circles around his wide blue eyes. He was holding a spacer in a yellow suit with one arm twisted up behind his back. Blood ran down the man's face from a broken nose.

"Apologize, you furrower of pigs," the Bethelite said quietly, in a voice that carried. "For the insult you gave my mother."

"Fardle you and your mother, like your pig daddy!"

"That was unwise."

Joseph's other hand gripped the spacer by the back of the neck and slammed his face into the glassteel surface of the bar again. Thwuck. This time something else broke.

Joat started to rise; that was not like Joseph. She also started to shout a warning, as another spacer in a yellow shipsuit rose with a chair in her hands. Alvec moved before she could speak, a quick snatch for the chair and a short chopping punch to the stomach—much less hard than he could have dealt, because the spacer simply staggered back clutching her gut rather than collapsing. The bartender had ducked down; he rose again, with a short bell-mouthed weapon in his hands.

Sonic riot gun, Joat thought, as she prudently dropped flat. That didn't block her view of a beer stein sailing through the air and thunking with solid authority between the barkeepers eyes. He fell backward, and this time stayed down.

Her new business acquaintance had vanished silently. Good idea, Joat thought, crawling towards the bar. Good idea, prudent idea. The tables were bolted to the floor, providing reasonably safe passage to the thick of things; bodies and pieces of furniture sailed through the air above, and grappling pairs dropped down to her level but couldn't roll past the table legs.

Joat encountered the waitress under one of them, just lighting up the stub of a dream-smoke stick and looking mildly entertained.

"I like the little blond one," she said to Joat, blowing a stream of smoke towards Joseph.

The Bethelite had just kicked a tall humanoid in the crotch, seized his head under one elbow as he bent over—evidently a vulnerable spot in that species, too— and was energetically punching him in the face.

"I got a thing for guys with muscles," the waitress went on. Alvec picked up another yellow-suited spacer and threw him in the direction of the door, clearing a pathway.

"He's married," Joat told her.

"So?"

"Uh," Joat shrugged, "whatever. Have you called Station Security?"

"Oh sure. We got a button under the bar, they'll be here in a couple a minutes." She drew deeply on her dream-smoke stick and offered it to Joat.

Joat shook her head. "No, thanks. I'd better be going."

She crawled under the next table and found herself beside Joseph and Alvec. Joat leaned out and grabbed their sleeves to get their attention.

"We're leaving. Now. Out the back."

"Aw, Joat—" Alvec began.

Another spacer was struggling with a stationer just behind him; the stationer staggered away, clutching at an arm. The spacer waved a long blade and shouted something blurred, lunging wild-eyed for Alvec’s back. Joat and Joseph moved with the perfect coordination of dancers; Joat grabbed handfuls of cloth at wrist and shoulder and pulled the attacker forward, redirecting his force and hip-checking him into a sideways stagger. Joseph whirled aside like a matador as the lunge was thrown his way, stepping inside the curve of the outstretched arm and driving the stiffened fingers of one hand up under the spacers ribs.

The figure in yellow collapsed, wheezing, and curled into a ball. Joseph toed the knife up against the brass rail and broke it with a quick stamp of his heel.

"Yeah, I see what you mean," Alvec said. "Funs fun, but knives are cheating. Let's go, Cap'n."

Joat picked up a pseudosilver tray; Alvec picked up a chair and pulled it apart, like tearing the wings off a chicken. That left him with two lengths of gleaming alloy. Joseph walked between them; a knife of his own appeared in one hand, curved and looking sharp enough to cut light. They put their backs together and moved in a rotating circle towards the doors at the rear of the bar, through a kitchen that made Joat glad she hadn't ordered any food, and then through a hatch marked danger into an access corridor.

The lights blinked. "Station Security," a voice said, vibrating through the metal of the circular corridor. "All wrongdoers will cease disturbing the peace and submit to arrest. Station Security—"

"This way," she gasped.

The access door three spaces down was dogged shut, and she fumbled in her jumpsuit for the picklock. It hung beeping for a nerve-wracking twelve seconds, and then the hatchway hissed open and they tumbled through into a dark and narrow corridor smelling of greasy food and dirty rest rooms. A weedy youth pushing a floater full of dirty plates and glasses stopped and gaped at them, his eyes going wide, and paled at the sight of the weapons.

Joat tossed her tray onto the floater. Behind her she heard a clank as Alvec dropped his chair-legs; Josephs knife had never made any noise, coming out of the hidden sheath or going back in.

"You never saw us," she said, tucking a half-credit piece into the pocket of a stained white apron.

The chinless face smirked. "Saw who?" he said, and pushed the floater on through a door whose lying stencil read sanitation.

"You two go clean up," she snapped, looking at their grazed, bloody faces. "I'll get us a table, and we'll make innocent. Just what I needed, arrest on a breaking-the-peace charge with stolen goods on me!"

She pushed through an opaque forcefield door; it was maladjusted, and the harmonics set her teeth on edge. There was a corner table by the wall-window free; it gave an excellent view of Rimrunners patrons being dragged out of the premises next door by helmeted Station Security police in light-impact armor. Shockrods snapped amid shrieks and curses; brawlers were lifted and tossed bodily onto the flat-body back of the Black Mariah, where a tanglefield held them in uncomfortable stasis, just as they fell. One of the police was sitting on the pavement with a compress on his flattened nose.

"Hid deb one for be!" he called. A comrade boosted his captive onto the flatbed with an enthusiastic boot.

Joat looked up as the two men returned, and jerked a tight-lipped nod towards the scene.

"I—" Joseph began. Then he looked down at his hands, opening them and closing them once. "He should not have insulted my mother . . ." He looked up. "And there has been no news of the Benisur Amos for more than three weeks. He is my Prophet, my brother, my friend . . . and I have failed him."

Joat sighed and let her shoulders relax. "Okay."

It was Joseph who'd taught her to keep her emotions out of business, though. Nobody's perfect. I guess learning that's part of growing up. Even Simeon lost it sometimes, and he could control his emotions, literally, by regulating the endocrine feeds to the body inside his Shell.

"You are right, Joat," Joseph admitted. "It was foolish of me and it will not happen again, you have my word."

"Mine too, Boss."

She sighed. "Thank you. And you're right, no harm came of it. Except for your bruises." And I hope they hurt! she thought.

She reached over and gripped Joseph's hand. "I realize you're under pressure, Joe. Sorry I snapped at you."

"Hey, Boss, what about me?"

Joat looked at Alvec out of the corner of her eyes and growled softly.

"Yeah," he said, "that's kinda what I figured."

She stood. "Let's go, I want to hustle up a cargo if I can. It won't look good if we leave with an empty hold."

"D'ya mind if Joe and me stick around here and have a few, get acquainted?" Alvec asked. "We're going to be on the same small ship for a long time." He shrugged: "Unless you need us for something?"

"No," Joat said, a little surprised. "Go ahead. Just remember , . ."

"You have my word, Joat," Joseph said firmly, but with a smile.

"Well, see you later then," she said, uneasy.

I trust them not to get into another fight, she realized as she left.

It was what the heck else they might get up to that worried her. Alvec had a positive gift for trouble, and Joseph was half-crazy with worry over Amos. Rightly so, if Amos was in the hands of the Kolnari.

She didn't believe in the Bethelite hell, but being in the Fist of High-Clan Kolnar was a pretty good approximation.

CHAPTER FIVE

"Clan Lord," Karak called.

Belazir paused on the threshold of his quarters and turned his head to look coldly at his approaching son.

"May I speak?" Karak asked him.

Belazir considered the request, wondering what aggravation his eldest son had in store for him. Then he surrendered to curiosity, gave a short nod.

"The scumvermin female languishes in her cell, Great Lord, ignored and lonely."

Belazir sighed and turned towards his son, contempt visible on his face.

"When I was your age, child, I too was excited by the terror of the prey. But I am older now and have known the pleasures of conquest often. I refuse to feel obliged to take every screaming, worm-colored girl I come across simply because it is expected of me."

Karak’s face was expressionless, but the stiffness of his posture told Belazir that he was humiliated by his father's response.

Had his son asked for the girl outright Belazir might well have given her to him. But this behind-the-back way of asking annoyed him. He had never been easy to manipulate and this exceedingly clumsy effort was an insult.

"Leave her to my pleasure, Karak. See to her health and well-being, but do not touch her."

Let the young hot-head chew his spleen over that, Belazir thought in amusement. With a nod to his son he turned and entered his quarters.

Soamosa paced her small cell, seven paces one way, five the other. She counted her steps. She had walked nine thousand one hundred and fifty four steps since waking. The cell was featureless save for its minimal furnishings, a neutral-gray box of ship metal. Doubtless intended to weaken prisoners by sensory deprivation.

The thought came to her that she should be praying. That she should find solace on her knees instead of on her feet. But she had tried that and it didn't work. Soamosa found herself praying for things that reminded her of the terrible fate that she and the Benisur Amos and the Captain shared.

At first, the prayers had been for deliverance, and for the safety of the Benisur, and then she had prayed that she not be raped, or locked in and left to starve. With every prayer Soamosa had brought herself closer to mindless panic. And so she paced and counted her steps, to keep her mind cleared and calm. And that worked.

Her back was to the hatch when it opened and she froze. Soamosa had made it her habit since being imprisoned in this cell not to look at the Kolnari who brought her food.

She had found them disturbingly beautiful, uniformly tall and blond, with shapely figures and stem features. Her mother had warned her not to be fooled by their appearance.

"You can tell that they are not human by the way that they despise all that is. If ever you should be so unfortunate as to meet them do not let their beauty blind you. They are devils in the world of flesh, inhumanly cruel and selfish. You dare not look upon them lest you should be lost."

Their leers and gloating remarks had made her all too aware of her torn dress and unbound hair and she had been unable to keep the tears of shame out of her eyes. Her only means of preserving her modesty and her dignity was to keep her back to them when they came.

Besides, she did not want to see their faces as they attacked her; which she knew they might do at any time. She had resolved to keep her eyes closed if it came to that. And she would sing a hymn, the one about smashing the enemies of God like pottery. That would show them what Bethelites were made of.

"Turn around, scumvermin," a stern voice commanded.

Soamosa stiffened, and after a moment complied.

"Look at me, scumvermin."

She bit her lips to keep them from trembling.

"No," she said coolly and clasped her hands before her.

Karak was astounded. It had never occurred to him that this tiny female would defy him. He was honestly puzzled and completely put off his stride by her refusal. What would his father do? And how did he make her obey without touching her? Coercion he knew all too well, of persuasion he was ignorant.

She turned her head away from him and looked up at the ceiling before lowering her eyes again.

"What do you want?" she asked haughtily.

Karak frowned. He'd lost the initiative and must wrest it back from her. This is not like the simulations. One did not allow prisoners to ask questions. He felt a spurt of anger. It wasn't as if she was a person.

He stepped close and began to circle her, allowing her to become aware of his bulk and to feel him looming over her.

Soamosa fought her trembling, fought to keep her eyes lowered and her feet firmly in place while her heart hammered and mind demanded run, flee, hide! She could feel the floor vibrate under his heavy tread and the heat from his near-naked body was extraordinary. He felt like a dark sun orbiting her.

The girl wasn't intimidated in the least that Karak could see. She kept her place, her face a mask of cool disdain.

His own face warmed in shame. All of his life he'd been laughed at and called soft because he lacked ambition in the arts of war. "The Poet" his agemates had named him and made his life a hell of mockery. Only his elder brother had befriended him:

"You will be a perfect second to me, brother. We will be a team"; so you said. But you died, and I must stand in your place.

A place that everyone, from his father on down, knew he could never fill.

He came to a halt before her, looking down on her and quivering with rage. Lucky for you I have been forbidden to touch you. Because I would rip you limb from limb.

He said softly, in a deep uneven voice, 'Your dress is very torn."

Soamosa clutched at the worst of the rents in her gown without thinking and she felt the color rise in her face. She was very ashamed.

"Yes," she forced herself to say, "it is."

"Perhaps I should find you something better to wear," he taunted.

"Thank you, that would be very kind," she replied automatically, while her mind screamed in panic, Be silentl Don't provoke him!

Karak blinked. She was either very brave or very stupid. Within him curiosity began to bloom and feelings of amusement and admiration mixed. It pleased him to be generous, he decided.

"I shall see to it then," he said and left her without a backwards glance.

Soamosa looked up when she heard the hatch close behind him. She stood staring at it for a long minute with her hands pressed hard against her rib cage, as though to hold in her frantically beating heart.

Then she turned and stumbled to her cot, falling back on it to gaze at the ceiling.

I did it! she thought. I faced down the enemy without flinching!

And then she burst into tears.

Belazir laughed until tears ran down his cheeks and he began to choke. At last the spasm passed and the laughter slowed to sighing chuckles until he could once again get his breath. Then he sat smiling before the surveillance screen.

"Perverse," he said to himself, chuckling again. "Utterly perverse. Yet oh so amusing." He knew he should be mortally offended, furious almost beyond his own iron control.

But he had never been close to this particular child of his loins, nor to the wife who had bred him. And the girl had shown incredible spunk, given the circumstances.

He wondered if he was going to kill Karak the next time he saw him.

Belazir knew that, for his honor's sake, he should. But, he thought with a sigh, since The Great Plague ravaged the people we have bred but slowly. Our numbers are as nothing and worse, the children are puny. And Karak has four healthy brats. He concluded that satisfying his honor with Karak's blood was a luxury the people couldn't afford. Yet.

Would that Karak's brother had lived instead. Belazir's lips curled in a wry expression. He had better use for a decent second-in-command than he did for comic relief. On the other hand, the boy's brother would have been a threat.

But he also wanted to see how this foolishness with the scumvermin female played out. He smiled again. His sense of curiosity had always been one of his besetting sins. He decided to indulge it in this case as he could not see any way in which it could become too costly to do so.

He'd intended to amuse himself by experimenting on the girl with the other new drugs he had bought and taunting Simeon-Amos with holos of her reactions. Well, obviously he couldn't use her so and also have her available for amusing episodes with his son.

No matter, he'd have a technician cobble together some sort of holo, extrapolating from the predicted responses that had been described to him.

That would be better, in fact! He wouldn't be distracted and could truly enjoy the Benisur scum-vermin's reactions. No doubt opportunities for live experimentation would arise in the course of events; and it would add a certain frisson to known that Amos’s despair and anguish were for nothing at all ...

"Yes," he murmured. "Let him think the scumvermin girl destroyed—and then I shall show her to him, whole and well. And destroy her again!"

Belazir sighed contentedly. Surely anticipation is one of life's true pleasures.

I hate my father, Karak son of Belazir thought, as he paced through the corridors of the Kali—the Dreadful Bride, his sire's old warship.

A pack of Kolnari children went by, in the wake of something bulge-eyed and long-clawed that squealed and snarled as it ran. They dashed after it with high shrieks of excitement, long razor-sharp knives in their hands. The sight distracted him for an instant; how long had it been since he was an innocent child, with nothing more to concern him than lessons and running down a drgudak with his friends? All of five years, now; since he turned eight and came to manhood. The infancy of Kolnar was brief.

I hate my father. What child of the Divine Seed didn't? But it's worse than that. I hate them all. He shivered. He was weak, too weak, hiding in his quarters and watching the tapes of the scumvermin female. He told himself it was honest lust, but it was not. She is weak. Yet she does not despair. The strangers were like that. His father had thought them weak, when the High Clan took Bethel, when it took SSS-900-C . . . and found that its meal was eating its way back out.

Decision crystallized as he fingered the injector in a pouch. He slapped palm against a communicator.

"Duty officer," he said. "I shall be unavailable for the next hour."

"No," Soamosa pleaded, "please don't." Her blue eyes were full of tears and terror.

She was held by two Kolnari, her slender form dwarfed by their muscular height. One of them held out her arm with the inside of her elbow uppermost. Despite her increasingly frantic struggles the arm didn't move. So that when the nozzle of the injector was placed on her arm it was right against a vein.

"Don't, please don't," she was weeping helplessly now. "No! No, NO!"

She tore herself free and huddled in the corner of the room; there were streaks of blood on her arms.

Belazir leaned down and grasped her chin in his huge hand.

"In only a moment, Benisur, it will begin," he said and turned to smile at Amos.

"No!" Soamosa insisted, holding her hands up defensively.

Karak smiled at the gesture, it was completely absurd. Seated beside him she looked like a creature made of gossamer and air, frail as a candle flame. And yet, he knew that she was the one in control. At all of their meetings it was she who had set the tone. Deep within himself, Karak sighed.

"You have nothing to fear from me," he said aloud. "I will not harm you."

Soamosa looked suspiciously at the earnest young Kolnari. Even in the midst of her fear his beauty struck her; and the lost look in the yellow eagle eyes.

"I do not trust you," she said severely.

Karak brushed back his long silver-blond hair distractedly.

"I am concerned for you," he said. "It is terribly dangerous for me to even offer you this protection. If my father knew," his lips tightened, "death would come to me as a friend."

Soamosa narrowed her eyes.

"I do not believe you," she said. "It is some Kolnari trick My mother told me all about the Kolnari sense of humor."

"Lady," he said and the expression in his eyes firmed. "It is my intention to save you, not to harm you. I will set you free." Karak blinked rapidly and swallowed hard. "And your companions if that is possible. I swear it."

By the sound of his voice, the oath might have been flayed from him. She raised her arm, the inside of her elbow uppermost and he placed the nozzle of the injector unerringly over the vein.

"Now that I've submitted to your injection, you must tell me what it does," Soamosa demanded, radiating poise and dignify and the mysterious power she held over him.

"It will keep you safe from a most dreadful disease," Karak told her. "My father means to use it against your people."

Suddenly, like a splash of cold water, Karak realized that with those words he was forever cast adrift from the Kolnar. He had betrayed them. Even if he failed to save Soamosa and her companions, if it ended here with his leaving her and never returning, he was a traitor. And he was glad. He felt freer than he ever had in his life, liberated from impossible expectations and deeds that he was not proud of. He was free. And the unnamable feeling he bore for this tiny young woman was the cause of it.

Karak leaned forward and Soamosa gasped in alarm. He closed his eyes and very tenderly kissed her forehead in gratitude.

Amos stiffened as the image of Soamosa screamed. Screamed until her mouth sprayed blood, as though she had burst a vein in her throat. And still she screamed, writhing in agony, until at last she lay still, gasping, her eyes rolling back in her head.

Tears ran down Amos's face unchecked. His arms held the weeping Captain Sung who clutched him in terror. The Captain had soiled himself in his fear, not understanding the screaming, nor Amos's soothing words.

"You are evil," Amos murmured, "and you shall be destroyed by your own evil. He shall break you with a rod of iron."

Belazir appeared before him.

"We shall let her rest for a bit," Belazir said in a conversational tone. "Then, if you like, I have some other drugs whose effects might interest you."

Sung whimpered and screwed his head tighter against Amos’s ribcage, trying to hide from Belazir.

Amos glared at the Kolnari Lord. "She is only an innocent young girl, Master and God. Why do you torture her so? Is there no pity in you at all?"

Belazir crossed his arms on his chest.

"How can you ask that, scumvermin? Have I not given the Captain there to the only person on this ship who would care for him? It would be more convenient to space him than to feed him."

Amos tightened his grip on the Captain's quivering shoulders.

"Captain Sung has been injured in my service, Master and God," he said humbly. "It is my duty to care for him as best I can."

Belazir's lip curled. "How touching. And he stinks so." Then the Kolnari smiled, he glanced at Soamosa where she lay at his feet. "Why, you have touched me," he said as though in surprise. "I believe that we shall give her a more relaxing injection this time." He looked back at Amos. "It will intensify feelings of pleasure and give her an overwhelming desire to please." He grinned evilly. "So you should enjoy watching this."

Belazir burst out laughing as the image of Amos and the brain-scrubbed spacer faded, to be replaced by his son in the cell of the Bethelite woman. He'd seen sleazy adventure holos created for scumvermin fools that were more believable than what he was watching.

Belazir pounded the arm of his control couch and shouted laughter. Ah, the rock-jawed righteousness of that Amos, he thought. And Karak, mooning over a piece of walking meat barely fit to serve a moment's pleasure and breed slaves.

It was pleasant that Amos was totally convinced by the holos his technicians had prepared from a pirated Central Worlds program. There were flaws, but Amos appeared to have missed them. Due, no doubt, to the harrowing content of the recording. And it was exactly the sort of thing Belazir would do. Always easier to believe what one expected.

He really would have to think of something suitable as a punishment for Karak. And yet, he wanted to see just how far this . . . romance, for want of a better word, would go.

He sat shaking his head in amazement as he watched Soamosa looking in wide-eyed wonder at Karaks stoic face. Then, tentatively, she placed her small hand on his and smiled.

Belazir began to laugh again as he started the next holo for the Benisur Amos's edification. His youngest wife called from the chamber within:

"How I yearn for you, lord of my life!" There was a waspish note to her voice.

"Anticipation heightens pleasure," he called back. "And silence averts beatings."

Yes. This compendium of erotic fantasies. Tame to Kolnari eyes, but it would torment Amos unceasingly, playing on the insides of his eyelids when he squeezed them closed to shut it out. Run a modification program here—

CHAPTER SIX

Mr. va Riguez:

I need to speak to you immediately on a matter of extreme urgency. Wyal is scheduled for departure at 03:00. Please contact me before then.

Sincerely,

Captain Simeon-Hap

She should have signed it desperately instead of sincerely, Bros thought, a wry smile playing at the corners of his mouth. He leaned back in the big, faux-leather chair in The Anvils office. Still, I'm surprised she said please. That lonely plea didn't seem to go with the imperious tone of the rest of her note. Dyson must have taken me at my word. He'd known the little weasel would.

Sperin had authorized the clerk to fine Joat up to twenty thousand credits. Or at least to tell her he was fining her that much. In reality the fine shouldn't be more than five or six thousand. Even that amount would be tough for Joat to scrape together. But twenty thousand . . . That was an absolutely staggering fine for any ship, let alone a struggling independent freighter like hers.

Bros grinned. Ridding her of a fine that size ought to engender a lot of gratitude, he thought comfortably.

Then his pleasure slowly faded. Joat Simeon-Hap wasn't someone he'd like to see broken to the plow, jumping when he snapped his fingers, dancing when he pulled her strings.

He didn't want CenSec to lose her. But I don't want them to own her soul either.

Them? he asked himself in mild surprise. He frowned. It had been many years since he'd thought of CenSec as other than we, or I. Some of that girl's independence is rubbing off on me, he thought ruefully.

"Sal," he said. Getting up he went to the heavy-shouldered man seated at an overburdened desk and dropped Joat's note in front of him. "Take care of this for me, would you? Joat Simeon-Hap’s ship, the Wyal, has been fined by the station. Pay it out of my special account."

"Sure, Mr. va Riguez, no problem," Sal said. He had a voice like stones grinding together.

Bros picked up his jacket and swung it over his shoulder. "And if Captain Simeon-Hap should call looking for me, you don't know where I am."

"I never do, sir," Sal agreed with a gap-toothed grin.

"But you might ask her if she'd like to leave a message."

Sal's sandy eyebrows went up. "I'm not sure I'm old enough to listen to the kind of language she's liable to use, sir."

Bros chuckled. "You tell her that," he advised.

Sal stared at the door after it had closed behind Sperin, then he glanced at the note again. I'll take care of it tomorrow, he thought. It's not like they charge interest. He put the note aside and went back to work.

CHAPTER SEVEN

"Rand, I want you to record this as it plays, all right?"

"Certainly, Joat. I had intended to anyway," Rand said. There was a faintly injured tone to the AI's voice.

"All right, people, got your note screens ready?" Joseph and Alvec nodded. "Well, okay, it's showtime!"

Joat entered the datahedron Bros Sperin had given her and keyed it up. For a few moments, as a fluid computer voice relayed the facts of Nomik Ciety’s life, the only sound was the click of styli as they took notes. But with the first holo snap, Joat looked up, and froze.

Her heartbeat speeded up until all she could hear was the sound of her own blood rushing. Pounding through her, beating against her fingertips, pulsing in her temples. Her sight narrowed to a tunnel sparked with black and white.

When at last she took another breath it roared in her ears like a cyclone.

Nomik Ciety, Nomik . .. Ciety. The face on the screen shifted from the scrawny, mad-eyed youth with a number across his chest to a grown man's, well dressed and smooth. A respectable businessman to all appearances, with a friendly smile and a twinkle in his eye. Her own blond hair, face a little angular. Cheekbones like those that greeted her every morning in the screen.

Uncle Nom, she thought. You're not dead! I was so sure you were dead. She felt numb now, and her heart rate was returning to normal. It was in the nature of humankind, to believe in what they most deeply wished to be true.

Joat closed her eyes and took a slow, quiet deep breath. Amos comes first, she thought desperately.

But memory bubbled up, eating away at the failing barrier of her will. She tightened her fist around the stylus, gripping it like a lifeline.

The part of her he'd betrayed screamed in frustrated rage: You were only seven! You were just a baby and he sold you to that sick bastard!

She was looking back at Uncle Nom as a big, smelly, shambling man led her away, his grip like a clamp on her skinny arm. Uncle Nom was waving and smiling.

"Bye-bye," he called.

"Uncanom," she heard her own thin, little girl's voice call out, "Uncle Nom!" Tears blurred her vision.

She blinked, her jaw was clenched so hard the muscles jumped and she felt sweat begin to bead her upper lip. Joat took a deep breath, trying to keep control. Trying to deny what she felt, because it was joy. Sheer, undiluted joy; a savage intensity of feeling that nothing in her life had ever rivaled.

How nice that you're not dead, Uncle Nom, she thought, fighting back a giggle. Knowing that she wouldn't be able to stop if she started. And then they'd ask questions. I don't want any questions.

Uncle Nom was hers. All hers. My toy to break, she thought with gleeful viciousness.

But she didn't have to hurry. Now she knew about him. There was no way he could hide from her, no place in all the worlds.

Don't look back, she warned herself. There's nothing back there that isn't going to cut you.

The reminder didn't work . . .

It was dark and she was huddled in a tiny space, a space that soon would be too small for her to hide in. She starved herself so that she could still fit, because he couldn't reach her here. There was a crash of metal on metal.

"Come on out you little wharf-rat! You're only makin' it worse!" His voice rose to a hoarse shout at the end that promised broken bones.

There was a rattle then, and with a clatter the cover over the air duct fell away to reveal the captain's fleshy, red face. He glared down at her, teeth gritted, breathing in a harsh rasp. Then he pulled back, thrusting his arm in to make a grab at her. Joat plastered herself against the duct, breathing in to make a hollow of her stomach. The blunt fingertips just brushed her clothing.

He pulled his arm out with a cry of rage and smashed his fist against the wall. Then his face appeared again.

"You'd better come out, little girl," he sang softly, with the purr of madness underneath. It was very bad when he stopped shouting and went quiet. "Or you're gonna be sooorryyy."

And she knew that she had to leave her shelter and let him have her. Or he'd seal her in. He'd done that once before and . . .

A hot hand touched her and she started with an angry hiss, turning to glare into Joseph's puzzled eyes.

"Jeeeezzz, Joe! Don't do that!"

"I am sorry," he said. "I spoke and you did not answer. I did not mean to startle you."

"Sorry," she said curtly. "What did you want?"

"I said that this man is more dangerous than I had expected. I am uneasy allowing you to take all of the risk in this matter."

"I'm not helpless, Joe! And I'm not Rachel, so don't even try to treat me like I am! I don't appreciate it."

She saw surprise in the way his eyebrows quivered, then settled down. For Joe that marked a profound change of expression.

Joat sighed, a little ashamed of her outburst. "I see nothing in this recording that gives us a reason to change our plans at this late date. Especially since our plans were to play it by ear and see what happens. You can't be more flexible than that, Joe."

"As you say, Joat," he murmured.

Joseph caught Alvec's eye over Joat's head. An imperceptible nod confirmed his judgment. He had never seen Joat afraid, in all the years he had known her—not even when the Kolnari occupiers had walked the corridors of SSS-900-C. Or could she fear for her ship? That was more than danger, it was a threat to her dream.

"Joat," he began tentatively, "if you cannot pay the fine to New Destinies what will you do?"

"Lose the ship," she said succinctly, and shrugged. "My fault entirely. The fine thing really wasn't such a good idea."

"Whatsisname, that guy?" Alvec said. "He'll take care of it, right?"

"Sperin?" she asked. Joat made a moue. "I'd feel better about that if he'd bothered to get back to me. But if I'm lucky he's already dealt with it." And if he hasn't I'm beached.

"Can you not simply change Wyal's name and your name and begin again in another quadrant of space? Surely you need not meekly surrender to them? If worst comes to worst, you can return to Bethel with me and we will shelter you." He saw her look aside and blink.

"Thanks," she said quietly, in his language. Then she took a deep breath and went on: "First, I'm not ducking out on Amos, whatever it costs. Second, I can't welch— not without losing my reputation; and this'll have gone out on the unofficial net too; they'd be after me like a sicatooth after a goat if I don't pay up, not to mention the bounty hunters." She paused reflectively. "You know how it is."

They nodded, and Alvec grunted agreement. You might get away with choosing the above-ground companies, but not the underworld. They had a primitive, straightforward approach to those who tried to cheat them.

"You don't seriously think I'd risk visiting your wife and children with bounty hunters on my tail, do you?"

"No," Joseph said and smiled.

"Besides, if I ran, then I'd never see Simeon or Channa again. It's not worth it." She stood and looked around the control cabin. "And," she went on, her hands closing into fists behind her back, "they're not even close to getting Wyal yet. We're going to Schwartztarr, and then on to Rohan."

Bros Sperin leaned back from the screen. So, she's gone. According to her itinerary Schwartztarr was her destination. And she's carrying a really weird cargo, going by the manifest. Most likely she was also carrying something Central Worlds would rather she wasn't. Little Ms. Simeon-Hap was nothing if not enterprising.

Uncertainty tickled his mind like a cat playing with a piece of string. She can take care of herself, Bros told himself. Don't try second guessing yourself at this late date. She's capable.

Capable of unraveling his carefully made plans. She was like chaos on two feet when she put her mind to it. He knew felinoid species who thought more before they leaped. Of course, he had to admit, like them, she tends to land on her feet.

But if she wanted to live long in this business, she was going to have to learn some caution. And some tact. He grinned, Sal had told him a few stories.

Bros liked Joat enough to want her to live a very long time indeed. He'd especially liked the Joat he'd met on the bridge of her ship; she'd been more spontaneous, more natural.

The universe would be a far less interesting place without that young woman in it.

He shook his head. The idea had been to lock up a loose cannon while he did the real work. Joat was supposed to merely observe. But having gotten a look at her style up close and personal, I wonder if she's even capable of doing something so passive as simply looking.

Nomik Ciety was involved with the Kolnari. To what degree Sperin had no idea. I suspect that he's up to his neck in them, he thought disgustedly. But Bros had long ago trained himself not to treat his suspicions as evidence. And if he is working with them he's being very discreet.

It was a calculated risk, sending her after a man like Ciety. Still, given his relatively exalted status on Rohan, he should be a perfect choice for Joat to investigate; a personage all but inaccessible to a lowly freighter captain on her first smuggling run.

And yet ...

"Enough," Sperin said aloud. While she leaves a streak across the troposphere, I'll do my entry . . . nice and slow and inconspicuous.

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The Ship Who Searched

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

Ship 06 - The Ship Avenged